RFI Transformative Trade and Investment in Africa beta.Sam.Gov.pdf

SUBJECT/NOTICE TYPE: REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI)

RFI TITLE: Transformative Trade and Investment in Africa (TTIA)

ISSUANCE DATE: Wednesday, January 15, 2020

COMMENTS DUE DATE: Wednesday, February 5, 2020

TO: ALL INTERESTED PARTIES

The United States Government, represented by the U.S. Agency for International Development

(USAID), is issuing this RFI for interested parties to provide comments, opinions, and recommendations on Attachment 1.

Please note this is an RFI and is not a Request for Proposals (RFP) or Request for

Applications (RFA). It is not to be construed as a commitment by the U.S. Government or

USAID to issue any solicitation or Notice of Funding opportunity, or ultimately award a contract or assistance agreement on the basis of this RFI, or to pay for any information voluntarily submitted as a result of this request. USAID is not seeking technical or cost proposals at this time. Do not submit any application/proposal at this time in response to this RFI. Responding to this RFI does not give any advantage to any firm or organization in any subsequent competition.

This RFI does NOT restrict the Government's acquisition approach on future solicitations. No phone calls related to this RFI will be accepted. All correspondence shall be via email.

All information received in response to this RFI that is marked PROPRIETARY will be handled accordingly. The Government shall not be liable for or suffer any consequential damages for any proprietary information not properly identified. Proprietary information will be safeguarded in accordance with the applicable Government regulations. Proprietary information or trade secrets should be clearly identified. USAID reserves the right to respond to any, all, or none of the comments and questions submitted. USAID’s responses (if any) will be posted on www.beta.SAM.GOV and disseminated as widely as possible.

Please submit your comments to this RFI via email to jraile@usaid.gov and

ProsperAfricaRFI@usaid.gov with the subject entitled: “RFI: USAID Transformative Trade and

Investment in Africa,” by the date stated above. USAID appreciates any questions and comments on the RFI and welcomes feedback on any or all of the following questions.

mailto:jraile@usaid.gov mailto:ProsperAfricaRFI@usaid.gov

1. How can performance based subcontracts and grants be integrated into our approach to achieve large-scale trade and investment results? Are there other performance-based tools we should also consider? What are the best approaches for ensuring appropriate risk-sharing between and/or among USAID, the implementing partners and the private sector?

2. In addition to the delivery of a core set of services described in Attachment 1, this project envisions that USAID Bureaus/Offices/Missions in Africa will ‘buy-in’ to address specific issues or country requirements within one or more of the Activity’s objective areas. What is the best way to integrate a dynamic staffing approach that can flexibly adjust as resources are added to the award or market opportunities dictate changes in technical needs or sectoral expertise in a country or region? What is the most cost-effective way to provide responsive technical/staffing coverage at a continental level while still being responsive and able to partner with our trade and investment teams based in regional Missions in Pretoria, Nairobi, Accra, and North Africa?

3. How can we best integrate innovative and cost-effective systems for managing large volumes of subcontracts and grants under contract? Are there creative or innovative ways of eliminating subcontracting or grant management overhead costs when partnering with firms with robust capacity and experience? What provisions could USAID include in a contract that would facilitate rapidly establishing and effectively managing large numbers of grants and subcontracts? USAID welcomes thoughts on how to maximize sub-contracting and grant opportunities for U.S. small businesses, new partners and local actors within the framework of this mechanism.

4. Are there approaches to achieving large- scale trade and investment results that we have not included in the RFI? Specifically, how can USAID use this mechanism to engage with and mobilize substantial investment from U.S. corporations and funds into developmentally impactful sectors in Africa?

5. How can we best engage private sector partners and investors that have not previously worked with USAID and/or the USG more broadly?

6. Are there key lessons learned, either positive or negative, from the Trade Hubs that should be considered in the technical approach to this activity? Based on learning and results from past trade and investment programming, what previous or existing interventions should this mechanism do more of and what should we scale back?

7. What are the best (simplest, most practical) methods and tools to ensure cost-share and buy-in from private-sector partners benefitting from this project while not locking out the ability to engage smaller/newer firms, or investments in new, higher-risk sectors or geographies?

8. What are the risks you see with the overall approach? How would you mitigate them?

Attachment 1

Transformative Trade and Investment in Africa (TTIA)

Draft SOO/SOW

The purpose of this activity is to mobilize enterprise-driven solutions that will help to unlock

Africa’s growing markets, expand U.S.-Africa trade and investment relationships, and achieve development outcomes across all sectors, in line with USAID’s Private Sector Engagement

Policy and the USG Prosper Africa initiative. U.S. foreign assistance has a twofold purpose of furthering America's interests while improving lives in the developing world. USAID carries out

U.S. foreign policy by promoting broad-scale human progress at the same time it expands stable, free societies, creates markets and trade partners for the United States, and fosters good will abroad. By strengthening mutually beneficial trade and investment relations between U.S. and

African firms and investors, TTIA will advance the African continent’s Journey to Self-Reliance.

The new activity will support trade, investment and PSE programming that drives development outcomes in all sectors. Illustrative technical capacities will include:

● Increasing Trade - Improving availability and flow of market information and analytics;

Strengthening business-to-business linkages; Co-investing with U.S. and other firms on sourcing partnerships in sectors and products with potential for large-scale growth.

● Increasing Investment - Identifying and facilitating investor match-making; Transaction facilitation services; Supporting U.S. and other pioneer firms/first-movers to enter

African markets; Financial sector deepening, including capital market platforms.

● Improving the Enabling Environment - Policy interventions that unlock specific trade or investment opportunities, especially those with direct impact on business and high-level political buy-in; supporting implementation of key U.S. trade policy priorities such as potential Free Trade Agreements or the African Continental Free Trade Area or the WTO

Trade Facilitation Agreement.

The activity is planned for five years with a total estimated cost of $400-$600 million. Funding identified for the activity is for sub-Saharan Africa, but could include Middle East funding in the future. It is anticipated that the activity mechanism will be a hybrid contract to account for known and unknown deliverables.

IMPLEMENTATION APPROACH

The private sector is best placed to identify opportunities for profitable investment and identify the support they require to seize new trade and investment opportunities in Africa. Therefore, the strategic and implementation philosophy of the Transformative Trade and Investment in

Africa is for private sector demand to inform and shape all activities, work plans, and strategies and for private sector analysis, expertise, and resources to power the mechanism’s efforts to cultivate potential business opportunities and unlock markets for African, U.S., and international businesses. The Transformative Trade and Investment in Africa activity will draw on USAID’s past experiences and relationships including existing platforms, to identify and structure opportunities where USAID funds can catalyze much larger private sector sourcing and investments through efforts implemented directly with the private sector and almost exclusively where USAID funds are dispersed based on achievement of milestones and results.

USAID envisions the new Transformative Trade and Investment in Africa activity will have the operational flexibility to pursue the highest impact transactions and opportunities across broad sectors, including goods and services, and regions. This flexibility empowers the offeror and

USAID to develop and support transactions and partnerships across regions and sectors and at a scale previously unachievable on the continent and, therefore, with results and impacts beyond those achieved under prior USAID projects operating in these areas. This flexibility can also be used to more effectively target gender gaps in African trade and investment.

The implementer is expected to field a lean implementation team of relationship managers, technical specialists, and support staff, including a subcontracts and grants management team.

The implementer will rely extensively on subcontracts and partnership arrangements to execute programs directly through the firms and market actors involved in the transactions themselves.

Unlike “traditional” implementation approaches that rely on a robust project staff to conduct implementation efforts, a lean project team will include an emphasis on cost-shared performance-based subcontracts in key areas, such as facilitating or brokering investment/finance activities and accessing highly-specialized commercial providers of communications and legal expertise. The project will also include a significant grants under contract facility for milestone-based Global Development Alliance-style grants to unlock investments and new sourcing partnerships between U.S. investors and buyers and African firms.

Performance-based sub-contracts and grants would not be pre-identified but rather be reserved to respond flexibly to the specific needs and opportunities identified.

As this mechanism is designed to facilitate and power market systems, it is envisioned that when the implementer addresses the Activity’s five objective areas, it will only directly implement a relatively small set of core tasks for which it can be determined that there are no private sector firms capable of providing those services, or when such services should not be provided by the market. Therefore, among the Activity’s five objective areas, the offeror must propose a core subset of tasks that will be supported centrally, and clearly distinguish those tasks from the broader set of services the implementer will facilitate through flexible subcontracting and grant facilities. Core activities should not exceed 25 percent of the total program budget. Additionally, the offeror will identify innovative ways for keeping the costs of subcontracting and grant administration as low as possible to ensure that a maximum amount of project resources go towards provision of private sector services.

The mechanism will have multiple strategically located offices designed to provide a critical interface for USG agencies and high volume business centers, including South Africa, Kenya, Ghana and North Africa, with a flexible pool of technical experts who can be deployed to any location as opportunities require. The implementer is expected, directly and/or through its partners, to operate in English, French, Portuguese, and Arabic, but geographically deploy expertise only as required, to minimize operating costs and maximize the use of local and regional private sector expertise.

ACTIVITY OBJECTIVES:

The contractor’s interventions will be directed through five interrelated project objectives. These areas may overlap and are not mutually exclusive. Work on all five objectives will be informed by gender analyses to reduce gender gaps. The five objectives are: 1) increased trade, 2) increased investment, 3) improved business environment, 4) leveraging strategic African, U.S., and international partners and resources, and 5) institutional support to USAID.

Objective 1: Increased trade

This objective has four main components: a) market intelligence, b) business-to-business linkages, c) emerging sector analysis, and d) supporting new business and sourcing relationships.

This objective seeks to mobilize trade, including two-way between the U.S. and Africa, through a proactive approach that improves awareness of opportunities, information sharing and direct facilitation of new business relationships. This effort will require significant collaboration and creativity that leverages the combined resources of the USG, as well as developing new modes of information sharing to facilitate increased information sharing with the private sector to ensure programming is grounded in transactions and market opportunities that businesses and investors are specifically pursuing.

1a. Market Intelligence

To encourage increased regional and international trade in Africa, particularly with the U.S., the activity will provide targeted, actionable market intelligence that identifies and supports new trade and investment opportunities. In addition to deployment through interagency communications resources, information and links to resources will be made available on a user-friendly webpage. The activity is expected to develop and maintain a tracking tool that identifies high impact investment opportunities similar to the approach taken by the USG Power Africa initiative. Where appropriate, the activity will promote gender lens investing and impact investing as well as more traditional investment approaches. The activity should seek to take advantage of existing USG and other resources and also explore the development of potential cost-shared partnerships with corporations, such as with business associations, and law firms

(including pro-bono resources) and multilateral development banks and institutions.

Market intelligence may include the following resources:

● Trade and investment data/resources including, but are not limited to: government procurements, corporate procurements, and opportunities identified promoted by national business associations and American Chambers of Commerce

● U.S. and African import/export requirements (i.e. country commercial guides, food safety regulations, etc.)

● New trade assessments

● Deal Discovery

● Investment pipelines and related opportunities

● Upcoming government procurement opportunities

● Training materials

● Gender lens investing opportunities

● AGOA customs expertise

1b. Business-to-business linkages

This effort will support new and increased business relationships and commercial partnerships between businesses, especially US and African. The activity will partner with other USG agencies and State and local governments to facilitate trade missions to Africa and the U.S.

around identified opportunities for potential investments and sourcing partnerships. The activity will also seek to partner with organizations on the African continent, particularly American

Chambers of Commerce in African countries and local business associations in Africa. However, to substantially increase business relationships, it is imperative for the activity to develop new and creative approaches to increase commercial opportunities and investment ties that go beyond just promoting awareness and participation at trade shows. Special efforts will be made to engage and incorporate women’s business associations, as well as to assist gender-neutral associations incorporate gender analysis and responsiveness into their work.

The activity will seek to deepen business-to-business and business to consumer links through exploring new and existing partnerships around the expansion of firms, particularly those participating in e-commerce platforms in the U.S. and Africa as well as other technology solutions that have the potential to connect large numbers of small and medium companies and consumers.

1c. Emerging sector analysis

As Africa’s economy develops, there will be increasing opportunities in sectors of the economy that are expanding, such as logistics, information technology and healthcare. Efforts to promote these and other emerging business sectors should be identified and analyzed and for increased

U.S.-African commercial partnership and engagement. Likewise, emerging high potential

African business sectors, including those with high potential for increased market share of women-owned businesses, should be identified to establish new business linkages and outlets in the U.S. and other international markets. Partnerships should be explored with business organizations and lead firms in these sectors.

1d. Supporting new business and sourcing relationships

To achieve significant increases in trade, the activity will also focus on sectors, products and firms with the greatest potential for large scale growth over the next five years. This will include identifying large lead firms, in the United States and Africa, with identified sourcing needs and strategies and working creatively with the buyers and potential suppliers on cost-shared partnerships to realize the commercial potential. These efforts may address some of the following buyer requirements or market impediments, including, among others:

● Assessing potential sourcing markets and suppliers

● Matchmaking/brokering of buyers and suppliers

● Initial due diligence/screening of potential new partners

● Supporting suppliers in meeting required quality standards or certification requirements

● Working with suppliers on packaging, labeling, and other requirements necessary to fulfill buyer orders

● Connecting women-owned businesses to international networks and opportunities

● Identifying and developing new value-added products (moving from raw commodity to higher value added forms)

● Aggregation of suppliers to meet quantities required

● Addressing market infrastructure barriers (cold chain. etc.)

● Addressing logistics challenges for specific products and destinations

● Supply chain financing solutions

1e. Strengthening the capacity of trade facilitators/service providers

This effort will target trade facilitators/service providers and strengthen their capacity to identify, cultivate, structure and finalize gender-informed trade deals and build trade relationships. Trade facilitators may include private sector partners, non-governmental associations, and U.S., African or multilateral government organizations. The objective is to build a network of trade facilitators that can extend the reach and supplement the resources available through the

Transformative Trade and Investment in Africa Activity. By building the capacity of trade facilitators/service providers, the Activity will establish a network that can sustainably support trade activities after the activity concludes. Efforts may include the following:

● Develop capacity to undertake or access market sector and product analysis, regulatory, and import/export requirements

● Develop/provide a series of webinars and/or live trainings to targeted trade facilitators focused on practical information/steps needed to advance transactions

● Develop standard tools/resources that trade facilitators can use for tracking transactions, information needed to assess deal “readiness,” etc.

● Development of case-studies or other learning tools on successful approaches to advance transactions

● Work with trade organizations to better incorporate women into their work;

● Work in partnership with trade facilitators to identify and establish relationships, cultivate, structure and finalize trade deals

● Address common issues of gender-based violence and sexual harassment within trade facilitation

● Build capacity of trade facilitators to maximize their profitability through effective outreach and trade promotion activities, including but not limited to outreach activities conducted by African facilitators to attract prospective U.S. enterprises

● Develop monitor mechanism to track the effectiveness of trade facilitators for continued support

● Conduct learning meetings that share knowledge and lessons learned among participating trading facilitators.

Objective 2: Increased Investment

This objective has four main components: a) identifying investment opportunities and sources of funds, b) promoting investment opportunities, c) structuring and/or facilitating investments, and

d) developing new financing solutions. This objective requires close collaboration with USG partner agencies and private sector sources of financing to leverage their unique strengths, while also exploring creative new approaches and mechanisms that can facilitate increased investment.

2a. Identifying investment opportunities and sources of funds

The activity will develop pipelines of investment opportunities. This effort includes the following:

● Identification of investment ready opportunities including firms and projects actively seeking financing; merger and acquisition opportunities, and high potential privatization/divestiture opportunities.

● Identification of debt/equity capital sources from investors, private equity funds, banks, pensions funds and other funding sources

● Conducting a gender analysis to determine any gaps and opportunities to close them in the investment arena

● Conducting initial screening/due diligence on opportunities to determine initial feasibility.

● Supporting private funding partners on building out their investment pipeline

● Structuring innovative performance-based partnerships that reward partners for realizing investment opportunities

● Identification of Gender Lens Investment Opportunities

2b. Promoting investment opportunities

Outreach to investors and businesses will be critical to achieving increased investment in Africa.

The activity will develop approaches and campaigns that highlight actionable, high value opportunities for US investors. Each of these may incorporate mentoring and curated participation by new male and female participants to ensure maximum impact. Efforts may include the following:

● Investment trade missions

● Investment brokering/match-making

● Investment conferences

● High level government engagement

2c. Structuring investment deals

To prepare viable investment opportunities, the activity will collaborate with potential investors to identify investment impediments or necessary incentives to conclude an investment deal. This activity should also include identifying opportunities and pipelines for other Prosper Africa partner agencies, including Ex-Im Bank, the International Development Finance Institution

(DFC) and the Trade and Development Agency (TDA), as discussed further under Objective 4.

This may require the activity to address barriers to finalizing an investment including, among others, the following:

● Deal structure

● Commercial and operational due diligence

● Feasibility studies

● Environmental and other required studies

● Fund set-up and risk mitigation

● Identifying co-investors

2d. Develop new financing solutions

The activity will explore the development of new financial structures, particularly those with potential to engage U.S. firms and investors, and increase access to finance for women-owned and men-owned African businesses and entrepreneurs. This may include expansion and uptake of existing but underutilized trade finance mechanisms such as secured lending and factoring.

● Supporting opportunities for pension funds to invest

● Partnerships with emerging African sovereign wealth funds

● Commodity financing vehicles

● New financial product offerings, including tailored products needed to reduce gender gaps

● Deepening capital market development and other forms for large scale financing, such as commercial paper, etc.

● Assist regulators to revise existing regulations for greater flexibility in promoting secured lending and financial technology to support trade and investment.

2e. Strengthening the capacity of investment facilitators/service providers

This effort will target investment facilitators/service providers and strengthen their capacity to build relationships and to identify, cultivate, structure and finalize investment deals. Investment facilitators/service providers may include private sector partners, non-governmental associations, and U.S./African governmental organizations. The objective is to build a network of investment facilitators/service providers that can extend the reach and supplement the resources available through the Transformative Trade and Investment in Africa Activity. By building the capacity of investment facilitators/service providers, the Activity will establish a network that can sustainably support investment activities after Transformative Trade and Investment in African activity concludes. Efforts may include the following:

● Develop/provide a series of webinars and/or live trainings to targeted investment facilitators/service providers focused on practical information/steps needed to advance transactions

● Develop standard tools/resources that investment facilitators/service providers can use for tracking potential transactions, information needed to assess deal “readiness,” etc.

● Development of case-studies or other learning tools on successful approaches to advance investments

● Work in partnership with investment facilitators/service providers to identify, cultivate, structure and finalize investment deals

● Develop monitor mechanism to track the effectiveness of investment facilitators/service providers for continued support

● Conduct learning meetings that share knowledge and lessons learned among participating investment facilitators/service providers

● Conduct gender analyses to reduce and gaps in opportunities for women as trade facilitators/service providers

Objective 3: Improved Business Environment

The Transformative Trade and Investment in Africa activity will strategically and judiciously deploy policy interventions when needed to unlock a potential trade or investment opportunity or to unstick an existing transaction and advance it to closure. In particular, the activity’s efforts in policy work will focus on a narrower set of interventions with direct impacts on business and high-level political buy-in. Particular attention will be given to gender gaps in the enabling environment as well. These areas may include, among others:

● Addressing business licensing/registration constraints

● Investment restrictions (by sector, foreign ownership, manager visas, repatriation of profits, etc.)

● Local content requirements (particularly extractives and ICT)

● Government procurement

● Intellectual property rights protection

● Export/import bans, quotas and restrictions

● Trade facilitation reforms

● Problems of “sextortion” and other abuses of power disproportionately faced by women

● Customs/tax treatment

● Product licensing and approval requirements

● Identifying and addressing discriminatory laws, or where the failure to enforce existing laws creates disparate treatment of and opportunities for women’s participation

● Support for implementation of reforms related to trade and investment agreements

Specific interventions should be selected based on their direct relevance to unlocking significant new investments or trade flows. These should be dovetailed where relevant and appropriate to the parallel efforts of other U.S. agencies, as well as the efforts of other donors and multilateral finance institutions providing enabling environment assistance.

Objective 4: Leveraging Strategic African, U.S. and International Partners and Resources

The Transformative Trade and Investment in Africa activity will utilize a ‘whole of government’ approach that leverages, not duplicates, the efforts of existing U.S. and African government and non-governmental organizations, including USAID bilateral missions and other donors located throughout Africa. Many potential partner organizations have long established approaches and networks that support increased trade and investment efforts. Consequently, it will be critical to the success of the activity that effective partnerships are established by USAID with support by the contractor team that leverage the particular strengths of these partner organizations, which include some of the following:

4a. U.S. federal and state government organizations

i. USAID

ii. U.S. Department of Commerce

iii. U.S. Department of State

iv. United States Trade Representative’s Office

v. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Foreign Agricultural Service

vi. U.S. Small Business Administration

vii. State governments and trade promotion agencies

viii. U.S. Trade Development Agency

ix. U.S. International Development Finance Corporation

x. Export Import Bank

xi. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Agency

xii. U.S. Department of Treasury

xiii. Council of Economic Advisors

xiv. National Security Council

xv. U.S. African Development Foundation

4b. African government organizations

i. Heads of State and Presidential Delivery Units

ii. Ministries of Trade, Commerce, Foreign Affairs and Treasury

iii. Independent Government Procurement Authorities

iv. Local and International Trade Promotion Agencies

v. African Union

vi. Regional Economic Communities

4c. US non-governmental organizations

i. U.S. Chamber of Commerce

ii. American Chambers of Commerce overseas

4d. African and International non-governmental organizations

i. Development Banks and Finance Institutions

ii. National or regional business associations

iii. African venture capital firms and organizations

iv. Women’s business or export associations

Objective 5: Institutional Support to USAID

The aim of this objective is to provide USAID, both in Washington D.C. and in the field, with broad technical, logistical, and administrative support necessary to assist in tracking, managing, implementing and publicizing the Prosper Africa initiative.

Illustrative interventions may include:

● Assist USAID in tracking the activities of, and coordinating with, Prosper Africa stakeholders, including other USG agencies engaged in the initiative, host country governments, non-governmental organizations, international development partners, regional institutions, and the private sector.

● Track trade and investment activities of other bilateral and multilateral donors and non-governmental organizations to enable Prosper Africa to leverage these resources in support of the Prosper Africa goals.

● Track trade and investment trends and developments in Africa, synthesize and analyze key trade and investment issues at the national and regional levels, including those relating to gender and youth.

● Conduct or provide gender analysis and design gap-reducing interventions into relevant trade and investment activities and programs

● Organize and provide logistical support for USAID or Prosper Africa initiative meetings, conferences, and training programs for stakeholders, including regional government officials, African partner organizations, and the private sector. This will include securing sites; planning and implementing logistics in support of meetings/conferences; preparing supporting materials and documentation for meetings/conferences; taking and distributing notes of meetings/conferences; and assisting in the preparation of background materials for visiting officials.

● Coordinate activity efforts with other USAID bilateral and regional partners.

● Provide communications and outreach support for the Prosper Africa initiative directed at the American public, U.S. Congress, African partners, and other stakeholders such as

USG agencies, the USAID Africa and Middle East Bureaus, and USAID regional and bilateral missions. These efforts will include organizing webinars, supporting the participation of the U.S. government in pan-African conferences and other events, managing an interactive website, among other platforms, for feedback from stakeholders during the implementation of the Prosper Africa initiative (blogs, chats, etc.), producing publications and periodic and regularly scheduled reports, PowerPoint presentations, weekly/monthly notes, briefers and success stories, magazine articles, and promotional and other materials highlighting the results of the initiative.

● Form partnerships with industry and relevant institutions to provide avenues for the transfer of lessons learned and best practices that will accelerate successful implementation and positive outcomes of the Prosper Africa initiative.

● Data analytics will be a critical component of the activity to provide relevant and timely information regarding the business/trade/investment climate. Extensive use of data analytics will be required to inform USAID about implementation activities and potential areas of new involvement. Person-level data will be sex-disaggregated.

● Provide M&E and Learning support to AFR/SD and regional missions, including implementing MEL plans, coordinating, consolidating and reporting on USAID and/or

Prosper Africa goals, and informing stakeholder through quarterly newsletters or annual reports.

● Possible management of an online platform for information sharing or coordination.

● Events planning and execution

SUBCONTRACTS AND GRANTS UNDER CONTRACT

The Transformative Trade and Investment in Africa activity is expected to field an implementation team of transaction and investment advisors that conduct a ‘core’ set of activities, as described in the prior five activity objectives. When conducting some of these activities, the implementer may provide cost shared performance-based subcontracts in key areas, such as facilitating or brokering investment/finance activities and accessing highly specialized commercial providers of communications and legal expertise. Cost-shared grants to support Global Development Alliance-style activities are also anticipated using Grants under

Contract authority. All contractors, sub-contractors and grantees will be required to adopt policies and procedures in line with the Administrator’s Action Alliance to Prevent Sexual

Misconduct. These performance-based grants and subcontracts would not be pre-identified but rather be reserved to respond flexibly to the specific needs and opportunities identified.

ACTIVITY CEILING AND BUY-INS

The activity ceiling will provide sufficient room for USAID missions to buy-in for more specific services under one or more of the activity objective areas. Each mission buy-in would identify the specific services requested and the related budget for those services.