Draft_L_and_M_information.docx

PROPOSED INSTRUCTIONS (Section L) Technical Approach Offerors must submit a technical narrative not to exceed 20 pages that includes the following:

· An outline of the conceptual framework, theory of change underpinning the proposed approach, and rationale; and

· A detailed description of the Offeror’s technical approach to achieve the PWS’ stated objectives and specific activities the Offeror will implement to achieve each result and integrate gender considerations under all five project areas.

Performance Monitoring and Evaluation Approach

Offerors must submit a Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Plan as an annex not to exceed 10 pages that includes the following:

Description of how the MEL approach will lead to reaching results (integrating gender considerations) under each of the five project areas. The plan should include:

· Proposed performance based standards for the period from the time of award until the approval of the work plan;

· Incorporation of tables listed under each of the five project areas in Section C, including proposed quantifiable performance standards disaggregated by year and quality assurance surveillance plans;

· Additional performance based standards, if any, proposed by the Offeror with results disaggregated by year and quality assurance surveillance plans;

· Additional output, outcome, and impact indicators with end-of-program targets and year-to-year milestones that correspond to the major activities and expected results;

· A learning agenda with research questions, including gender related questions, designed to test the theory of change and the Offeror’s plan for assessments, studies, and/or surveys to complement existing data; and

· Description of how the Offeror will collaborate with, coordinate with, and receive feedback from various stakeholders, generate knowledge, share lessons-learned, and use acquired knowledge to adjust programming throughout the period of performance.

Management Approach

Offerors must submit a management approach not to exceed 12 pages (exclusive of annexes) that includes:

· A description of the distinctive roles and responsibilities of the prime contractor and sub-contractors, how each proposed organization will contribute to achieving impact and outcome priorities, and how the structure emphasizes synergies and complementarities among the project’s components. The plan must include an overview of how activities and communication will be managed and coordinated between the prime contractor and sub-contractors.

· A description of its management approach to ensure coordination, collaboration, and information sharing within the project and with USAID, United States Government, and other stakeholders to complete the tasks in the proposal. Offerors must distinguish between entities with whom they intend to enter into an implementing agreement (sub-contractors) and others with whom they intend to collaborate, but not transfer program funds.

· A strategy to respond quickly to meet technical assistance, capacity building, and other requests from the Government of Guatemala while maintaining a focus on medium-term impacts.

· A staffing plan that demonstrates how proposed staff will support the proposed technical approach to achieve results. The staffing plan must include:

· A description of staff management to ensure rapid start up during the project’s first 120 days of implementation;

· A description of the extent to which the offeror intends to use local, well qualified Guatemalan professionals in leadership positions;

· A description of all technical and support staff, including Guatemala based staff, headquarters and/or regionally based staff, and short term technical assistance. For staff members offerors must: (a) specify the percent of effort devoted to the project; and (b) describe their roles and responsibilities; and

· A depiction of the organizational structure in an organogram format, showing the project, headquarters, and/or regional linkages.

14 days before the proposal due date, a Key Personnel Annex incorporating the following: (a) list of up to five proposed key personnel positions; (b) one-half page position descriptions with minimum qualifications for the proposed key personnel positions; (c) level of effort; (d) CVs not to exceed five pages each, (e) at least three references with contact information; (f) signed letters of commitment from each candidate indicating his/her availability to serve in the stated position, in regular terms of days after award; (g) intention to serve for a stated term of service; and (h) agreement to the compensation levels which corresponds to the levels set forth in the cost proposal.

Past Performance Performance information will be used for both the responsibility determination and best value decision. USAID may use performance information obtained from other than the sources identified by the Offeror/sub-contractor. USAID will utilize existing databases of contractor performance information, solicit additional information from the references provided in the PPI Data Sheets and from other sources if and when the Contracting Officer finds the existing databases to be insufficient for evaluating an Offeror’s performance.

b. Adverse past performance information to which the Offeror has not previously had an opportunity to respond will be addressed in accordance with the policies and procedures set forth in FAR 15.3.

c. USAID will initially determine the relevance of similar performance information as a predictor of probable performance under the subject requirement. USAID may give more weight to performance information that it considers more relevant and/or more current.

In an annex, the Offeror shall provide Past Performance information (including the Small Business Subcontracting Supplement to Past Performance Information) prior to the proposal due date as indicated on the cover letter of the RFTOP and as detailed below:

The Offeror shall provide Past Performance information as detailed below.

Offerors must submit the Past Performance Information (PPI) Data Sheet included in the RFP to provide information on the ten most relevant current or previous awards performed within the last five years that are similar in size, scope, and objectives to what is described in the Statement of Work. Offerors must include the awards performed in sequential order and not select those awards with the best past performance information. Past performance information must be submitted for all sub-contractors responsible for major functions critical to the success of the technical approach. Each Offeror should submit no more than 10 past performance information data sheets for the entire prime/sub-contractor team.

Offerors shall not provide assessments of their performance on any referenced award. USAID will use the PPI Data Sheets to contact organizations for which the work was performed.

Relevant past performance consists of implementing similar projects with measurable outcomes on public financial management – including budget planning, budget execution, budget oversight, revenue generation and public administration in Latin America and the Caribbean, other lower-middle income countries, and any other countries. Past performance in Latin America and the Caribbean is considered more relevant than past performance in other lower-middle income countries. Past performance in other lower-middle income countries is considered more relevant than past performance in other countries.

USAID recommends that the Offeror alert the contacts that their names have been submitted and that they are authorized to provide performance information concerning the listed contracts if and when requested by USAID.

(a) If extraordinary problems impacted any of the referenced contracts, provide a short explanation and the corrective action taken (FAR 15.305(a)(2));

(b) Describe any quality awards or certifications that indicate exceptional capacity to provide the service or product described in the statement of work. This information is not included in the page limitation;

(c) Performance in Using Small Business (SB) Concerns (as defined in FAR 19.001);

(1) This section (d) is not applicable to offers from small business concerns;

(2) As part of the evaluation of performance in Section M. 3 of this solicitation, USAID will evaluate the extent to which the Offeror used and promoted the use of small business concerns under current and prior contracts;

(3) In order for USAID to fully and fairly evaluate performance in this area, an Offeror who is not a small business concern must do the following in the Small Business Subcontracting Supplement to Past Performance Information document:

(A) Provide a narrative summary of the Offeror organization's use of small business concerns over the past three years. Describe how the Offeror organization actually used small businesses – as sub-contractors, as joint venture partners, through other teaming arrangements, etc. Explain the nature of the work small businesses performed – substantive technical professional services, administrative support, logistics support, etc. Describe the extent of the Offeror organization’s compliance with its SB subcontracting plan(s) or other similar SB incentive programs set out in its contract(s) and explain any mitigating circumstances if goals were not achieved.

(B) To supplement the narrative summary in (A), provide a list of the recent contracts (prior three years) for which the Offeror organization submitted sub-contract reports to eSRS (FAR 52.219-9(d)(10)) and a copy of any similarly recent sub-contracting reports if they were not submitted to eSRS.

(C) Provide the names and addresses of three SB concerns for USAID to contact for assessing the Offeror organization’s performance in using SB concerns. Provide a brief summary of the type of work each SB concern provided to the Offeror organization, and the name of a contact person, his/her title, phone number, and e-mail address for each.

The PPI Data Sheets (including the Small Business Subcontracting Supplement to Past Performance Information) are due 14 calendar days before the technical and cost proposals.

PROPOSED EVALUATION CRITERIA (Section M)

Technical Approach

The proposal will be evaluated on the extent to which the Offeror proposes:

· Effective, feasible, and apt solutions to achieve the results outlined under each of the five project areas, and integrates gender, considering the challenges, needs, and opportunities unique to Guatemala.

Performance Monitoring and Evaluation Approach

The proposal will be evaluated on the extent to which the Performance Monitoring and Evaluation Approach:

· Demonstrates a focus on results and attributes activities to impact;

· Proposes Acceptable Quality Levels/Performance Based Standards that are relevant, ambitious, and achievable;

· Reflects an understanding of the relevant data sources and resources needed to accurately monitor progress toward achieving Performance standards in its Quality Assurance Plans;

· Supports continued collaboration, learning and adapting; and

· Appropriately integrates gender considerations.

Management Approach Proposals will be evaluated on the extent to which:

· The Management and Staffing Plan is logically organized, realistic and responds to the technical requirements of the project; demonstrates a rational, efficient use of resources and provides for a reporting, implementation, and operational support structure that will facilitate a rapid start up and successful achievement of the desired results in all five project areas.

· The quality and experience of the proposed combination of key personnel encompass the skills outlined below as presented in the CVs and supported by professional references. USAID will conduct reference checks using the references provided and other sources as deemed necessary by the Contracting Officer:

Leadership: Key personnel must be able to publicly represent the project and oversee coordination with key stakeholders, including USAID, the GOG, civil society, the private sector, and others.

Public Financial Management: Key personnel must demonstrate successful professional experience implementing programming in diverse aspects of PFM policy including, multi-year planning, expenditure management, and tax administration.

Public Sector Change Management: Key personnel must have experience managing or facilitating change and performance improvement in public sector institutions, with experience related to PFM policy and administration and civil service reform. Key personnel must demonstrate the ability to play a lead role in identifying constraints and gaps impeding organizational performance in assisted institutions, shaping plans to manage change and build capacity, developing effective communications strategies, and developing comprehensive training plans for the implementation of various reforms, systems, policies and procedures. Additionally, key personnel must demonstrate the ability to further transparency and open governance, facilitating strategic communications, outreach, and engagement between government and civil society and private sector on fiscal policy and administration matters.

English writing: Key personnel with demonstrated experience drafting and editing published documents in English that communicate complex topics logically, simply, and with a results focus.

Gender Expertise: Key personnel must possess gender expertise relevant to PFM activities.

Contract Management: Key personnel must have experience managing international development programs of comparable size and scope.

Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL): Key personnel must demonstrate the ability to take critical inputs feedback and assessments from within the project and external partners to inform changes in project approaches.

Past Performance The Offeror’s performance information determined to be relevant will be evaluated in accordance with the elements below:

· Technical, including quality of product or service and consistency in meeting goals and targets. Cost control, including forecasting costs, as well as accuracy in financial reporting. Schedule, including the timeliness against the completion of the contract, task orders, milestones, delivery schedules, and administrative requirements (e.g., efforts that contribute to or affect the schedule variance).

· Management or business relations, addressing the history of professional behavior and overall business-like concern for the interests of the customer—including the Offeror’s history of reasonable and cooperative behavior (to include timely identification of issues in controversy), customer satisfaction, timely award and management of subcontracts, cooperative attitude in remedying problems, and timely completion of all administrative requirements.

· Management of key personnel, including appropriateness of personnel for the job and prompt and satisfactory changes in personnel when problems with clients were identified.

· For a prime Offeror who is not a small business concern, the utilization of small business concerns as sub-contractors, including efforts in achieving small business participation goals. The evaluation will assess the extent small business concerns participated in contracts relative to the size/value of the contracts, the complexity and variety of the work small business concerns performed, and compliance with the Offeror organization’s small business sub-contracting plan or other similar small business incentive programs set out in the Offeror organization’s contracts.

Offeror’s performance will not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably when:

· The Offeror lacks relevant performance history,

· Information on performance is not available, or

· The Offeror is a member of a class where there is a provision not to rate the class against a sub-factor. When this occurs, an Offeror lacking relevant performance history is assigned a "neutral" rating.

For example, a small business prime Offeror will not be evaluated on its performance in using small business concerns. If this sub-factor is worth a possible 10 points out of a total possible point value of 100 for the technical proposal, then the small business prime Offeror’s technical proposal will have a maximum of 90 possible points. If it was assigned a total score of 80 points out of the 90 maximum possible points, its total technical score for evaluation against other Offerors would be 88.89 (i.e., 80/90). USAID understands that there may be minor arithmetic differences in percentage terms as a result; however, it considers these differences to be minor and that they will not impact any best-value decision made under this solicitation.

An exception to this “neutral” rating provision is when a non-small businesses prime has no history of subcontracting with small business concerns.

Prior to assigning a "neutral" past performance rating, the Contracting Officer may take into account a broad range of information related to an Offeror's performance.

CONTRACT TYPE

USAID/Guatemala is contemplating the following contract types: Cost-plus-fixed-fee Completion, Cost-plus-fixed-fee Term, and Time & Materials for CLIN 001 (Project Areas 1-5) and Firm-Fixed-Price for CLIN 002.