Justification and Approval for Other than Full and Open Competition - 7200AA20N00002 P00016.pdf

JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN

COMPETITION (J&A)

TO: Alex Russell, Task Order Contracting Officer, M/OAA/CPS

FROM: Eric Duneman, Task Order Contracting Officer’s Representative, CPS/Program Office

SUBJECT: JUSTIFICATION AND APPROVAL (J&A) FOR OTHER THAN FULL

AND OPEN COMPETITION

1. This document sets forth the facts and rationale justifying the use of other than full and open competition, in accordance with USAID Acquisition Regulation (AIDAR)

706.302-70(b)(5):

This document was prepared by the Program Office in the Bureau for Conflict Prevention and

Stabilization (CPS) for the CPS Bureau Institutional Support Services Contract (ISSC) task order

(7200AA20N00002) with Global Solutions Ventures (GSV) under the government-wide U.S.

General Services Administration (GSA) Small Business One Acquisition Solution for Integrated

Services (OASIS) Indefinite Quantity/Indefinite Delivery (IDIQ) contract.

2. The nature and/or description of the action being approved:

This is a request to approve a modification without competition to extend the period of performance of the subject task order by twelve (12) months from September 24, 2025, to

September 24, 2026. No change to the price of the task order is required. As the ordering period of the underlying IDIQ contract has expired, an exception to full and open competition is required to effectuate this modification.

This proposed extension will allow the CPS Bureau to more effectively and efficiently procure future requirements as well as to continue highly specialized services to support implementation of the Global Fragility Act (GFA) and other needs. CPS is the lead for USAID on GFA matters as part of the whole-of-government Global Fragility Strategy, known as the U.S. Strategy to

Prevent Conflict and Promote Stability (SPCPS). Not extending the end date would result in additional costs, incur delays, and would impair U.S. foreign assistance objectives, and would therefore be inconsistent with the fulfillment of CPS’s mandate.

For any future needs, CPS will design and solicit for a new competed award likely with a small business (to be confirmed via ongoing market research), and will not seek to increase the value of this award or further extend the period of performance.

3. Description of the supplies or services required, including an estimated value:

The subject task order was competitively awarded in September 2020 to provide the CPS Bureau with a variety of services to support the bureau’s role in coordinating and conducting USAID’s prevention, conflict and violence mitigation programs, stabilization, and other initiatives or programming. The subject task order’s price is $26,772,069 with an end date of September 24, 2025.

The subject task order provides critical, specialized services in support of implementation of

GFA and the SPCPS. CPS is the lead bureau in USAID for the implementation of the GFA and the SPCPS. The SPCPS is a long-term initiative to redefine how the United States prevents violence and advances stability in areas vulnerable to conflict. Under the bipartisan GFA, passed in 2019, the U.S. government is required to implement this Strategy through 10-year plans developed with extensive consultations with local stakeholders in our priority partner countries and region: Haiti, Libya, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, and the Coastal West Africa countries of Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, and Togo. USAID, the Department of State

(State) and the Department of Defense (DoD) make up the “3Ds” that are the primary actors in the whole of government approach required by the GFA legislation and the SPCPS. The requirements on CPS to lead on GFA require highly specialized expertise using the subject task order to be able to fulfill the aims of the GFA as expected by the U.S. Congress, the National

Security Council (NSC), and the broader U.S. government interagency.

For GFA implementation support, the work these critical positions will do includes, but is not limited to:

● Support the implementation of 10-year country/region monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) plans as required by Congress;

● Review monitoring data to prepare reports on the overarching progress and challenges of the Global Fragility Strategy, coordinate MEL efforts across and between implementing departments and agencies, and carry out the high-level research and analysis outlined in the strategy-level learning agenda;

● Facilitate the development and execution of the global strategy-level MEL framework and provide support and guidance to county/region and activity-level MEL efforts in the priority countries and regions;

● Support policy engagement with the interagency and National Security Council;

● Support project management, to include: overall logistics, knowledge and document management, task tracking, and coordinate preparation for the inter-agency and internal

USAID meetings; and

● Support the development and implementation of an outreach and communications strategy for internal and external audiences and learning initiatives.

Within the context of support for GFA implementation, these services are highly specialized. As noted, CPS is the lead for USAID on GFA matters as part of the whole-of-government implementation of the GFA and the SPCPS and plays a critical and high-profile role in all aspects of the work. The U.S. Government entities involved in GFA/SPCPS look to CPS to be the central coordinating entity and to have the deepest technical and operational expertise on the relevant laws and statutory requirements. This includes Congress, the NSC, the Department of

State, Department of Defense, in addition to numerous bureaus, missions, and leadership within

USAID.

Contractor personnel hired to support these functions have significant specialized experience:

such as the design of and parameters for the implementation of the Presidentially-approved

10-Year Workplans for each of the GFA priority countries; a global understanding of the specific contexts for each of the regions and countries and the needs of each to successfully implement the GFA (rather than a siloed country-specific lens as is the case for most personnel working on

GFA issues, who are working on just one country); a historical view of all aspects of the

GFA/SPCPS from the beginning of the implementation of the GFA (which will be critical in updating the GFA plans soon for the next five years of the initiative); and key responsibilities in the day to day operational aspects of the necessary interagency coordination, upon which the success of the GFA/SPCPS depends.

Contractor personnel have helped to build out the current architecture for GFA/SPCPS processes as well as inter- and intra-agency communications, lessons learned, reporting, and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) approaches. At the strategic level, much of the focus in the past two to three years has been developing an innovative architecture and framework for facilitating, scaling, and institutionalizing reforms and adaptations to USG processes and approaches to prevention and stabilization to maximize resources. An interagency GFA Secretariat was established that facilitates joint planning and operational collaboration across the Departments of

State, Defense, and Treasury, USAID, and other parts of the USG, including the Millennium

Challenge Corporation (MCC) and the U.S. Development Finance Corporation (DFC).

Contractor personnel provide critical support for the GFA Secretariat, who oversee the planning and implementation of the GFA/SPCPS and ensure a whole of government approach, as expected by Congress under the legislation.

Contractor personnel are steeped in all aspects of the current state of play of GFA issues and gaps for successful implementation and provide highly specialized skills to USAID for effective implementation of the GFA/SPCPS. Daily and weekly, contractor personnel engage with each of the five regional bureaus in USAID as well as staff in the nine countries that are GFA priorities.

They are experts in the specific issue set and constraints in each of these GFA countries and approaching these needs globally to address the gaps in the future. Contractor personnel are critical for the overall cross-sector collaboration required for successful GFA implementation and enabling the country teams to plan and design innovative, evidence-based programs across various sectors. This expertise has been developed since the beginning of GFA implementation and will take months or longer to recreate if CPS loses these services, as further explained below under Item 5.

In addition to the intensive and ongoing support to missions, regional bureaus, and other agencies, as noted above, a highly sensitive and critical initiative in the near-term is that the first five-year cycle of GFA is ending and planning and capturing lessons learned from this first cycle is critical for the second cycle to be developed in 2025. The technical expertise procured through the subject task order that supports GFA is a critical piece of this planning, as contractor personnel have been involved in GFA work from the earliest days of GFA implementation and have irreplaceable knowledge and expertise related to how GFA/SPCPS planning and implementation have been conducted in the past two to three years. These services will be essential throughout the multi-month process for planning of the second five-year GFA cycle.

Contractor personnel also support USAID personnel and planning in all the GFA priority partner countries and the relevant regional bureaus in Washington, D.C. daily in MEL, communications, knowledge management, and provide support to the GFA Secretariat as well as DoS and DoD.

It is expected that the pace of support to USAID field missions will continue to increase and the role of CPS as the lead within USAID for implementation of the GFA is now even more front and center in the inter-agency. Without the continued ability of CPS to maintain the existing highly specialized services, CPS will not be able to fulfill its critical role leading to an impairment of foreign assistance objectives.

4. Statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition:

Pursuant to 40 U.S.C. 113 and AIDAR 706.302-70(a)(2) in relation to impairment of foreign aid programs under the authority, “full and open competition need not be obtained when it would impair or otherwise have an adverse effect on programs conducted for the purposes of foreign aid, relief, and rehabilitation,” AIDAR 706.302-70(b)(5) states that the authority may be used for

“A specific contract for the continued provision of highly-specialized services when an award to another contractor would result in substantial additional costs to the Government or cause unacceptable delays.”

5. A demonstration that the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition that requires use of the authority cited:

As further documented in this J&A, the use of the authority cited is necessary for CPS to be able to continue to acquire highly specialized services to meet critical foreign policy priorities.

As noted above, the subject task order provides critical, highly specialized services in support of implementation of GFA and the SPCPS, and CPS is the lead bureau in USAID for the implementation of the GFA and the SPCPS and a lead part of the inter-agency efforts and in liaising with Congress. Contractor personnel are steeped in all aspects of current GFA issues and gaps for successful implementation and provide highly specialized skills to USAID for effective implementation of the GFA/SPCPS. The GFA is a unique effort within the USG and the personnel hired by the contractor to support CPS have built up a highly specialized set of skills related to the internal requirements of GFA implementation. If CPS were to lose these personnel the onboarding process for new personnel would incur unacceptable delays and will take months simply for the recruitment, hiring, and security clearance process (obtaining a security clearance alone can take two to four months). Then, the new personnel would have to be trained and learn the unique details of GFA implementation and the needs of the USAID missions and bureaus related to the programmatic aims and operational aspects of the initiative. These delays would impact CPS’ ability to be the lead on GFA and directly impair foreign assistance objectives. Also as noted above, the first five-year cycle of GFA is ending and planning and capturing lessons learned from this first cycle is critical for the second cycle to be developed in 2025. The technical expertise procured through the subject task order that supports GFA is a critical piece of this planning, as contractor personnel have been involved in GFA work from the earliest days of GFA implementation and have irreplaceable knowledge and expertise related to how

GFA/SPCPS planning and implementation have been conducted in the past two to three years. If the contractor personnel’s highly specialized services and expertise were not able to be utilized throughout the multi-month process for planning of the second five-year GFA cycle, USG foreign assistance efforts would be impaired and unacceptable delays would be incurred. As such, any approach to acquisition of these services must prioritize continuity of services and minimizing risks associated with disruption of services at key points of the GFA cycle.

CPS is conducting ongoing research and analysis for future planning of bureau requirements.

Currently, the CPS Bureau utilizes multiple contracts to acquire similar services. There is a strong potential that consolidation of these services under a single contractual mechanism could yield savings to the bureau in the form of reducing management and oversight inefficiencies and reducing redundant services. Further efficiencies could be realized through standardizing services provided to the multiple offices that constitute the CPS Bureau. However, consolidation of requirements is currently not possible, as the various contracts end at different times, with the subject task order ending approximately one year before other mechanisms used by the bureau.

Unifying the end date of the current contracts used will allow for the most effective approach for procurement of future requirements.The proposed extension of the subject task order would achieve this unification without the Government incurring undue costs, delaying the provision of these specialized services, or impairing its foreign assistance objectives.

6. Description of the efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as practicable, including whether a notice was or will be publicized as required by

Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 5.2 [AIDAR 705.2].

In accordance with AIDAR 706.302-70(c)(3), when the authorities at 706.302-70(b)(5) are used, the Contracting Officer must publicize the advance notice of the proposed contract action as required in FAR 5.201. The required notice for this action was published to the governmentwide point of entry, www.sam.gov, on December 16, 2024. No inquiries or expressions of interest were received in response to the required notice.

To support the procurement of future requirements, USAID issued a request for information and sources sought notice on December 2, 2024. Initial market research based on that notice indicates that there are capable and responsible contractors that could fulfill future requirements. However, for the reasons elaborated above, award of the currently contemplated action to another contractor would be inapposite and carries the risk for incurring substantial undue costs or unacceptable delays.

The current contractor has been performing very well under the subject task order and presents a very low risk of unsuccessful performance for the proposed extension.

7. A determination by the Contracting Officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable:

Based on the remaining mortgage in the task order and projections for the cost of services over the requested one-year extension, no change to the price of the task order is contemplated by this action. The price of the task order was previously determined to be fair and reasonable.

Limitations on cost and relevant rates incorporated into the existing task order and underlying

IDIQ contract will ensure that all costs to the Government remain reasonable and realistic.

http://www.sam.gov/

8. Description of the market research conducted, and the results or a statement of the reasons market research was not conducted:

As noted above, on December 2, 2024, USAID posted a request for information and sources sought notice related to future requirements for the CPS Bureau. The information from this notice will be used to help inform future requirements and determine if CPS can responsibly consolidate multiple requirements. Based on initial analysis of this market research, there are capable and responsible contractors able to perform similar future requirements. However, this market research does not change the analysis that award of the currently contemplated action to another contractor would result in impairment to CPS’ ability to fulfill its mandate.

9. Other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition:

The implementation of the GFA is an issue of high foreign policy priority. The interagency, USAID, and Congress are all looking to CPS to continue to lead the process for the Agency and not continuing the highly specialized services currently within GSV will impair the ability of

CPS to successfully be the lead entity. The first five years of the GFA are ending and the re-authorization of GFA will increase the need for CPS to lead USAID and engage deeply with counterparts at State and DoD. The CPS Bureau will also continue work with other parts of

USAID and the Department of State on an overall monitoring and evaluation plan for GFA, which is required by Congress as part of the legislation.

10. Sources, if any, that expressed an interest, in writing, in the acquisition:

As noted in Item 6 above, the Contracting Officer publicized the advance notice of the proposed contract action as required in FAR 5.201. This notice was posted on www.sam.gov on December

16, 2024. No inquiries or expressions of interest were received in response to the required notice.

11. The actions the Agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services required:

USAID does not anticipate barriers to competition for future acquisition of these services. As noted above, the planning process for a future procurement and market research in support thereof is already underway. As services are currently acquired from small business concerns, USAID is particularly focused on ensuring that future acquisitions facilitate and prioritize the participation of small businesses. In the aforementioned request for information, USAID specifically requested feedback from small business concerns on whether they foresaw barriers to their participation in the procurement of consolidated requirements. The CPS Bureau and the

Office of Acquisition and Assistance will continue to work with the Office of Small and

Disadvantaged Business Utilization to ensure these barriers are addressed in any future acquisition. As noted above, CPS will not seek to raise the ceiling of this task order or further extend the period of performance after this request.

http://www.sam.gov/

12. Technical or Requirements Personnel Certification:

In accordance with FAR 6.303, I hereby certify that the technical statements included above and that form a basis for the justification are complete and accurate.

GARY ERIC

DUNEMAN (affiliate)

Digitally signed by GARY ERIC

DUNEMAN (affiliate)

Date: 2025.01.08 16:09:39 -05'00'

Eric Duneman Date

Technical Office Representative

CPS/Program Office

13. Contracting Officer Certification & Approval:

In accordance with FAR 6.303, I hereby certify that the justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief. Based on the authority under AIDAR 706.302-70(b)(5), as the cognizant Contracting Officer, I approve this justification for other than full and open competition for an end date extension of twelve (12) months from September 24, 2025, to

September 24, 2026, to Task Order 7200AA20N00002.

ALEX JOHN RUSSELL

(affiliate)

Digitally signed by ALEX JOHN

RUSSELL (affiliate)

Date: 2025.01.08 17:12:36 -05'00'

Alex J. Russell Date

Contracting Officer