Transcript_of_Industry_Day_Remarks.pdf

ANDERSON COURT REPORTING

706 Duke Street, Suite 100

Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190

UNITES STATES AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

INDUSTRY DAY

GLOBAL HEALTH SUPPLY CHAIN PROGRAM

Washington, DC

Thursday, October 31, 2013

PARTICIPANTS:

Moderator:

DAVID STANTON

Director of Office of HIV/AIDS

Panelists:

AMAN DJAHANBANI

Director, Office of Acquisition & Assistance

WADE WARREN

Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Global Health

LANCE BUTLER

USAID Ombudsman

KIMBERLY BALL

Deputy Director, Office of Small and Disadvantaged

Business Utilization

MARK RILLING

Division Chief, Commodity Security & Logistics

GAYLE GIROD

Office of General Counsel

SALLIE McELRATH Office of Acquisition & Assistance

P R O C E E D I N G S

(9:11 a.m)

MR. STANTON: Good morning. I don’t have a gavel, I have a pen, so thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome, and I’m so glad it rained yesterday and not today. That probably made it a little easier for you to get here this morning.

On behalf of USAID, I want to welcome you to today’s event. My name is David Stanton, I’m director of the Office of HIV and AIDS here at USAID and I am very pleased to welcome you to see your high level of interest in the Global Health Supply Chain Program.

As many of you know, the Global Health

Supply Chain Program will be the cornerstone of

USAID’s global health goals.

I want to say a few words about the format for today, and for that I need to take off my glasses and read carefully, but I ask you to give me your undivided attention for a moment.

The format for today will include remarks from senior leaders from across the agency along with a few short presentations from the team developing the

Global Health Supply Chain Program solicitations.

Based on guidance received in preparing for this meeting, we will not use it as a forum to answer questions. The primary purpose of today’s event is to provide you with a venue to exchange ideas and consider partnerships as you prepare to submit your proposals.

After my colleagues speak, I will open up the floor for a networking session. We’ve provided you with a list of organizations that are represented here today to help you connect. I’d like to note that a list of organizations in attendance, a transcript of all remarks and the presentations provided today will all be posted on FedBizOpps.gov.

And so, without further delay, I would like to introduce the head of the Office of Acquisition and

Assistance, Mr. Aman Djahanbani. Thank you.

(Applause)

MR. DJAHANBANI: Good morning. What a great crowd. So, first of all, I would like to welcome you.

It truly is a pleasure to see all of our partners here working with us to meet our critical objectives in the areas of disease prevention and treatment and family planning throughout the developing world.

I want to extend a special welcome to our small business partners. I know our leaders from the

Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Office will relay more information on exciting new endeavors and opportunities for you later, but for now let me just say welcome, it is great to have you here and, again, it’s a pleasure, especially when we’ll be talking about the new infrastructure and the single IDIQ that we are working on, and, of course, Sallie McElrath will be going through all of that later.

I want to -- so, basically, our health programs and projects impact so many globally and remain top priorities for the agency and for our global health acquisition assistance professionals year after year, and this year is no different, especially as we are making exciting structural changes to the procurement process.

More details will be delivered throughout the day on the new award structures, as I mentioned, but essentially this fiscal year we are moving to combine the delivery of critical prevention and treatment medications for HIV, malaria, and family planning, under one single IDIQ. This is aimed at improving the efficiency of delivery process thereby increasing the effectiveness of our overall programs.

In addition to the single IDIQ, we will also be breaking out some specialized smaller awards that will create more supply chain opportunity, especially for our small business partners. While we are pleased to announce this new structure and are confident we will achieve more efficiency and create more opportunity through these mechanisms, any time you make changes to a longstanding structure, there creates a potential for increased complexity during the initial transition and a greater need for coordination with new and existing partners, which is why today is so important.

I consistently emphasize the importance of early engagement for my contracting and agreement officers during the program design phase and we are working very hard to make that happen, but engaging our partners directly, through industry days and other events, is equally important.

This industry day marks an opportunity for a different kind of early engagement to smooth out the new process and create networking opportunities making connections between big and small business partners, encouraging competition, but also collaboration.

USAID remains committed to fairness, openness, and transparency throughout this process and we welcome your feedback throughout the day and in the coming months as we prepare to release the solicitations.

Speaking of the release of the solicitations, our colleague, Sallie McElrath, will be discussing the specific timeline a little later today.

The details of the new structure will be also outlined and discussed at length, but for now let me reiterate to you that these are top priority awards for AID as a whole and particularly for myself and Wade Warren, sitting right there.

So, Global Health and our partners provide essential health commodities to people who need them worldwide and we are dedicated to doing our part to ensure this continues seamlessly, even with a new structure. We are working diligently to get the solicitations out as soon as possible while ensuring the integrity of the procurement process with regard to full and open competition.

I look forward to a tremendous day of collaborative discussion and progress today. I know together we will continue to meet the global health and development needs of those we assist in every corner of the world.

Thank you again for coming today and I hope you will have a wonderful day. Appreciate it. Thank you very much.

(Applause)

MR. STANTON: Thank you, Aman. We’d like to now turn to the vision of the Bureau for Global

Health, the vision for the supply chain, and to do that, we’re inviting the Deputy Assistant

Administrator for the Bureau of Global Health, Mr.

Wade Warren, to walk us through that. Thank you.

(Applause)

MR. WARREN: Thank you. Good morning and like Dave and Aman, I’m really delighted to see so many of you here this morning. We’re really pleased at the high level of interest that so many of you are taking in our Global Health Supply Chain Program and your attendance here today is a testament to that.

It is also a testament, I think, to the critical importance of this program to the work that we do in USAID and I’m going to be talking a little bit about that now. But before I do that, though, I wanted to say a couple of introductory words and some thank yous.

For one thing, I’m told that this is going to be the sixth largest contracting opportunity to be solicited by the U.S. government this fiscal year, so it ranks right up there with a number of large

Department of Defense contracts, which is not usually the company that we find ourselves in at USAID, so this is a big moment for us, and I also wanted to reiterate, as Aman just said, that we’re dedicated to offering opportunities through this program for new partners and for small businesses and to conducting the solicitation through a full and open competition.

So, again, I’m really happy to see so many of you here. As you’ve heard, after the prepared remarks this morning there’s going to be an opportunity for you all to network. We’re hoping that it will be a chance for you -- some of you -- to find potential new partners or learn more about the partners that you’ve been having discussions with or, at a minimum, it will be a chance for you to scope out some of the other competition. So, take advantage of the opportunity later in the morning to do that.

And then I also wanted to say a word of thanks to the team at USAID who has been working so tirelessly to put this solicitation together, not just this event this morning, which I’m sure you can appreciate was a lot of work in and of itself, but we have teams of people in the Global Health Bureau and also in the Office of Acquisition and Assistance who have been working together for months to prepare the solicitation, so thank you to all of you.

As Dave said, I was going to just offer a few remarks about why we in the Global Health Bureau think this program is so important and how it fits in with all the work that we do. And we know and we believe throughout the agency that having healthy populations in the countries where we work is a cornerstone of development and that having solid health programs everywhere around the world and healthy populations is a key to development and to everything that this agency does.

And not only that, but all of our health programs depend on commodities and the right kinds of commodities being delivered quickly and smoothly to the people who need them when they need them. So, from our perspective, as Dave said, this program is a cornerstone of our entire health program.

I wanted to point out to you that the nature of the work that we do in Global Health has changed over the last ten years or so since the previous supply chain programs were put in place, and I’ll just outline three examples.

When the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS

Relief was announced ten years ago, the original goals were treating two million people, caring for seven million people, and preventing ten million new infections, and that was a lofty goal enough, but the

President announced a year, two years ago, that the new goal for our HIV/AIDS programming is to create an

AIDS-free generation, so we have significantly escalated the importance of what we do and the goals in our HIV/AIDS programming.

Likewise, in our malaria program, we have now embraced a worldwide global goal of achieving and sustaining universal coverage for all populations who are at risk for malaria and providing them with appropriate prevention and case management interventions.

And then, finally, in his State of The Union address last year, the President outlined an important new goal for USAID, which is to prevent -- or to end preventable child and maternal deaths around the world, and that’s a significant new goal for us and one that will, of course, rely on commodities to be provided through this program.

I wanted to also note that in the management of our supply chain programs in the past, we’ve tried to promote our priorities in two important ways, one is that we have harnessed economies of scale so that we can pool commodities and logistics and achieve cost savings in that way, and the second is that we have also realized how important it is to strengthen the systems that are needed to deliver the commodities, and those two aspects of the way we manage our supply chain, our commodities, will continue to be important in the years ahead.

I think all of you recognize that delivering life saving medicines and diagnostics in resource-challenged areas is difficult. Since 2005, USAID has spent $3.1 billion on health commodity procurement and

$600 million on system strengthening. And despite all the challenges, we think that we’ve seen dramatic improvements that have required an immense effort on the part of all of us. And just to give you an example, one of our delivery -- one of our projects has, on average, delivered four shipments every single day for the last seven years, and those shipments have ranged in size from 40-foot containers full of life-saving drugs to chartered flights with diagnostic tests to the shipment of a single piece of high value laboratory equipment.

And, of course, all of you know that the international shipping of commodities is only half the battle. With our partners in the past we’ve worked in conjunction with host governments to deliver the commodities through that last mile, which can sometimes be the most difficult, and as I mentioned, we’ve made important efforts to strengthen the systems that are able to deliver commodities through those last miles.

A couple of examples of that are we’ve rebuilt some central medical store infrastructure to make sure that commodities are stored and supplied in the proper way. We’ve introduced modern technologies and business practices to try to avoid stock-outs and wastage, and, as I said, we’ve partnered with local distributors to extend our reach into new areas.

So, we will continue those kinds of efforts with this new program and, again, that’s why, as I said, we really do view this supply chain program as a key to all of the work that we do in global health.

My colleague, Mark Rilling, is going to talk about some of the changes and improvements that we think we’re building in to this new procurement, but I wanted to highlight one that he will discuss in more detail, and that is the way we intend to manage this program is not disease-specific as it has been in the past and so we are expecting with the new design to break down some of the silos that have existed in the past among the different diseases that we have worked in and to work in a more integrated way with the management of the procurements.

So, I will draw my remarks to a close there, but again, I just want to repeat how very excited we are to see this solicitation finally coming to life after what seems like a very long birthing period.

We’re very excited to take the next steps with you and we recognize the work that you’re doing and that we’re doing with you are going to affect people all around the world and bring health interventions to people who need them and would not otherwise have access to them, which is what we at USAID are really all about. So, thank you again for coming. I’m going to turn it over to Mark now? Or I’ll turn it over to Dave and Dave will introduce Mark.

But, again, we really appreciate your dedication and your interest in this program.

(Applause)

MR. STANTON: Thank you. I think I haven’t been keeping track but I’ve heard the phrase “full and open competition” more than once this morning already and I know it’s a phrase that probably is why many of you are here today if not all of you and thank you for that.

I’d like to turn the podium over to Lance

Butler, who is the USAID Ombudsman, who will elaborate on the concept of full and open competition to help everybody get on the same page on that. Lance?

MR. BUTLER: DA Warren, OAA Director

Djahanbani, my USAID colleagues, and our development partners, good morning and welcome.

I’m going to pivot slightly from the point of competition, I’ll talk about that briefly, but what

I wanted to do is introduce myself to you. My name is

Lance Butler and I am the USAID Acquisition and

Assistance Ombudsman. What I do is serve as an independent, impartial dispute resolution practitioner. I work to resolve issues, concerns, complaints regarding the acquisition and assistance process.

What I do is once I receive the complaints, I work to propose solutions, make recommendations, and

I also maintain strict confidence when it’s required by you.

As the ombudsman, some of the things that

I’m empowered to do are: conduct inquiries, investigate, report findings and make recommendations, develop, evaluate, and discuss available options to you, facilitation, negotiate, and mediate concerns, identify complaint patterns and trends, educate, and also advocate on behalf of you when the need arises.

Some of the limitations of the ombudsman’s office is that I may not substitute for the formal

USAID or judicial process. The ombudsman’s office serves as a supplement to the formal process, but it does not substitute for that. I cannot make changes or set aside law, regulation, or policy, I’m not empowered to make binding decisions or to direct or compel any CO or agency action.

As your ombudsman, I will not voluntarily disclose to anyone outside of the ombudsman’s office, including USAID, any information that any person provides in confidence or the person’s identity, unless necessary to address an imminent risk of serious harm or with that person’s consent. Critical to accomplishing the purposes of the ombudsman’s office, it’s a trust that you place in the activity.

I will work hard to ensure that everyone is treated equitably and fairly and I will maintain strict confidence and respond timely to your questions and your concerns.

I look forward to establishing relationships with each and every one of you. Please reach out to me if there are any issues with respect to the competitive process, if there are any issues with respect to fair opportunity issues, any questions, concerns, clarifications that you may have regarding this process, or any process within USAID with respect to acquisition and assistance, please reach out to me.

My contact information, email is lbutler@usaid.gov, phone number is 202-567-5304, cell phone 571-225-9780. Day or night I’m available.

Thank you.

(Applause)

MR. STANTON: Thank you very much. Next I’d like to invite Kimberly Ball to join us. Kimberly is the Deputy Director of the Office of Small and

Disadvantaged Business Utilization, sometimes we pronounce it OSDBU, but I think I like the longer version better, and as mentioned, there are small business opportunities in this activity and I invite

Kimberly to elaborate.

MS. BALL: Good morning. Okay, let me begin by saying, I’m not giving out my cell phone number, so it’s great to have people who are new in their positions and eager and enthusiastic. I think that’s wonderful, and I’ll go ahead and say Lance used to work for me, so I’m very proud of him, and apparently

I raised him right, so congratulations on the new job and good luck.

Okay, so good morning. It is wonderful to be here and I’m glad to see so many familiar faces from the small business community -- Betsy Bassan -- I see Betsy is here and Betsy’s one of the people who said to me, I think there are changes that can be made to supply chain to sort of break it out so there’s more opportunity.

I’m going to be honest and say I was skeptical, but fortunately for Betsy, the Global

Health Bureau was thinking along the same lines she was and so here we are today with much more opportunity for small business and for all of you, frankly, so I think it’s a wonderful program, I think you’re going to be really excited to hear what Mark is going to talk about today.

You know, in addition to that, I’m sure that most of you who do business with us on a regular basis are familiar with USAID Forward and the local solutions component of that. One of the objectives, Objective 3, of that, the local solutions component, is actually run by the small business office, which is how I refer to us so I don’t have to say the long name or the acronym.

One of the goals of that program, though, is to increase competition and to increase the number of partners that the agency has that are U.S.-based, including U.S. small businesses, which is one reason

I’m standing here in front of you today.

To that end, one of the things the agency has done is developed a small business indicator. For those of you who are small businesses and who work with our office regularly, you know that one of the limitations of the program is that the laws only apply domestically. That doesn’t mean we can’t use the small business programs overseas, but it’s a little bit more limiting and it makes it a little bit more difficult for us to encourage submissions to do that particularly when there are other things like

Objective 2, local country development, et cetera, that we’re competing with at the same time.

So, the agency has decided to actually include a small business indicator. This is important because it means that we’re going to start counting our numbers worldwide and not just domestically, so that is a huge change for us.

So, this indicator is actually starting this year on a trial basis, we’ll actually have a goal that we’re going to track this year, but next year it will be actually implemented on a full basis, so hopefully over the next year or two you’re going to see a lot more progress with being able to get awards overseas.

So, that’s a big deal and our director, Mauricio Vera, worked very hard to make that happen.

Global Health, though, let me say this, was ahead of the curve on this. You know, we have had lots of conversations about this program, about the

Supply Chain Management Program, which is the predecessor to this program, and the impact that it has on our ability to achieve our small business goals.

So, the Global Health Bureau came to us early on to talk about doing some market research to look at what the possibilities might be for including small business on a greater degree than we’ve done in the past, so based on the work that they’ve done, I’m glad to tell you this morning, that there is a lot of opportunity for you here today, both as prime contractors and as subcontractors, so we thank the

Global Health Bureau under Wade’s leadership for that.

So, thank you very much.

And where small businesses are performing as subcontractors we also want you to know that with

Aman’s support, we are doing a better job of tracking subcontracting compliance. This is something that we’re taking much more seriously as an agency, so where small businesses are proposed as subcontractors, we actually want to see that they’re actually getting work, we want to see that the large businesses are doing what they said they were going to do in their proposals.

Now, this is the beginning of a very long process for us, but we are beginning to track those and what you’re going to see at the end of the day, at some point in the future, is that we’re actually going to be using that information in the way that we’re supposed to, which means, when you’re being evaluated for new awards we’re going to look at what you’ve done in the past, did you do what you said you were going to do, and we’re also going to be calling you up or asking our CO friends to call you up and say, hey, you’re a little behind the curve here, what’s going on, let’s see if we can’t bring these numbers up.

So, those are some really big changes that we’re looking at in the small business program that we’re really excited about.

None of this happens overnight, so we’re still in the middle of a long process, but we are definitely moving forward and we’re here trying to make sure that the agency gets the benefit of what you as small businesses bring to the table.

We do recognize the importance of the Global

Health Supply Chain Program and are pleased that the small business really is going to have an important role in this, so you’re going to hear about the different components today about what this program is actually going to look like.

I’d like to go ahead and tell you that one of those components, laboratory services, has been entirely set aside for small business, so please pay attention, that’s big. And I was hoping for a little bit of applause here, because I think that’s like amazing. (Applause)

Thank you. So, we’re going to ask that you actually take full advantage of this opportunity today here to network. Global Health, again, has really gone out of their way. You’ll notice that there are these little color-coded tabs on your tables. Put those on your nameplates so you can see who else is interested or looking for partners in the areas that you work in. It is a wonderful opportunity to collaborate and partner and for small businesses, again, to propose as primes or subcontractors where that makes sense.

Aman had talked about transparency this morning. They’ve also been really great about posting most of the pieces of this program on Federal Business

Opportunity, so if you have not already done so, please take a time to look at those drafts that are already out there and available.

And with that, I would like to say, thank you so much for coming this morning and we look forward to this being a wonderful program in the inclusion of a lot of small businesses. Thanks.

(Applause)

MR. STANTON: The next person I’m going to introduce is Mark Rilling. If I told you how long I knew him, it would be embarrassing for both of us probably, but I think the important thing to know --well, his title is that he’s the Chief of the Division of Commodity, Security, and Logistics, which really doesn’t say how important he’s been to the

Reproductive Health Program at USAID for quite some time.

He has been, for us, one of the go-to experts when the Office of HIV/AIDS began developing the program that you now know as Supply Chain.

So, with that I’ll stop embarrassing myself and Mark and simply say that he’s going to give us an excellent overview of the structure of the Global

Health Supply Chain Program. Thank you.

(Applause)

MR. RILLING: Well, I’m going to be talking for long enough that I brought a drink. So, settle

in. This is going to be a bit of a slog.

Good morning. On behalf of the technical teams working on the design and documents of this suite of procurements, let me add still more welcome to those who are here in the room and to those who will read these remarks. We appreciate your level of interest in this business opportunity. Even more, we appreciate your interest in the work of the U.S.

government and USAID in particular, and your engagement in the welfare, health, and development of the countries and communities where we work. So, thank you very much.

A wide range of organizations RSVP’d and we look forward to seeing the sign-up list of who actually attended. It’s no surprise that a suite of awards of this magnitude would be of interest to many.

We will publish all of the remarks made here today as well as the list of organizations that RSVP’d to facilitate your further considerations, networking, and discussions.

In addition, let me add that I’ll not be taking questions today and am required to read these remarks to ensure that they are exactly what gets published. So, apologies for the formality.

As you know, this is not the first time we have competed this kind of work. The first time was in 1986, several times in the interim, and more recently, in 2005 for SCMS, in 2006 for DELIVER, and we’re not the only ones. Missions, other donors, and international bodies have competed and awarded similar work as well.

Across the public and private sectors we have come to know a lot about this work. There continues to be increasing recognition at AID and among other donors, foundations, international organizations, and most importantly, among countries, that health commodity procurement and supply chain performance are critical, essential elements of a viable and sustainable public health program.

As has been said, we’ve published on

FedBizOpps.gov, for public comment, several scopes of work in this suite of awards already. Thanks to many of you for your questions. You have helpfully pointed out many things that needed to be clarified and we hope you will see how seriously we considered your questions in the revisions to the overall architecture of the suite of awards as well as specific wording and provisions in the RFPs that get published.

Please read them carefully. Don’t assume that the final solicitations are the same as the earlier published drafts, because they are not.

We will not take time today to restate what has already been published in the scopes of work by way of background, objectives, activities. You’ve seen that already. What the team here wants to provide today is more context, grist for your thinking in preparing your responses to the solicitations.

First, this is not business as usual. We have consulted widely with the field and with experts from industry and academia, and as a result, we have created a design that allows for more competition and partners. The intent is improved overall performance, efficiency, and value for money. We welcome and anticipate serious competition for each award.

Second, the world has changed and expectations have changed. If you are not already familiar with the goals of an AIDS-free generation or the President’s Malaria Initiative or ending preventable child and maternal deaths or FP2020, you should read up on these because they are the new programmatic contexts in which we work.

In addition, the international health community is preparing for post-Millennium Development

Goals, talking about universal health coverage, and the impact and opportunity of the economic transition underway in Africa. Also, you must be aware of the

Global Health Initiative principles and those of USAID

Forward that guide what we do and increasingly how we must do it.

To meet the agency’s goals, we need to better align our resources, minimizing duplication, and draw on the skills and experiences of other partners. It is only by working together that we can make progress toward reaching these goals. We expect to achieve demonstrable results in empowering people, communities, businesses, and governments in assuring the availability of life-saving medicines, diagnostics, and other critical products.

By the time this suite of awards comes to an end, we expect that the supply chain world in developing countries, especially Africa, will look markedly different than it does today. The successful offerers will help to shape that supply chain world to be far better than what exists today, not only in terms of patients on treatment or disease incidents or organizational capacity, but also who is financing, managing, and implementing procurement and distribution.

Third, collaboration, coordination, and partnerships are very important. Each of these awards does not work in isolation from the others, including other central awards such as SIAPS and PQM and, importantly, not in isolation from the work of other major players in international health.

Your proposals need to reflect awareness of how this looks and works in the context of what others are doing such as DFID, WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, the World

Bank, the Global Fund, GAVI, the Gates Foundation, CHAI, the UN Commission on Lifesaving Commodities, and

FP2020, to name a few. This is the U.S. government’s major effort in essential health product procurement for the developing world and related product quality assurance and supply chain assistance over the next decade.

It is important that these awards collaborate with each other and others to maximize impact and efficiency.

Still getting started.

Fourth, these awards are centrally managed and field funded. We want to make sure you recognize another fact of life in working with us across this suite of awards. We invite you to look at this opportunity from the perspective in the field. The vast majority of funding for these awards will come from USAID missions in country. That is where the critical action is and results are need, and where the funds are.

Of the nearly $10 billion we anticipate for this program of work, probably less than 2 percent will come from our budgets here at headquarters.

USAID missions are not required to use this suite of awards except for malaria and family planning commodity procurement. In fact, missions are under some internal pressure, as well as from donors and partners and host country governments and organizations, not to over rely on the components of this architecture and to explore alternative sources of commodity assistance and funding.

So, what will attract USAID field missions to choose to use one or more of this suite of awards?

So, this is a list. Here’s what they’re looking for:

technical expertise, narrow, deep product or program specific expertise, often specialists, and sometimes more generalists, for large-scale supply chain operations; increased flexibility, predictability, and low-risk in procurement; knowledge of what works and does not work in their specific country; lessons learned and best practices from elsewhere, including from commercial practices, NGOs and governments;

strategic analyses and a mapping toward funding more local implementation; technology transfer; reduced management burden; greater visibility on people, design, timelines, activities, costs, and budgets;

partnerships with local organizations; diplomacy and a spirit of service; transition planning for sustainability; and value for money.

An important thing to understand is that this architecture was designed to meet the needs of

USAID missions as well as the two Presidential initiatives, PEPFAR and PMI. Their procurement, commodity procurement, and technical assistance needs are as diverse as the countries where they work and request for assistance to these awards will take many permutations.

I’ll attempt to cover a few of them here to add some context to this complex environment. Let’s assume that a country has identified needs for products in their supply chain improvement or at least asked for an assessment to determine how to improve performance. The country request may go to a cross-section of donors and stakeholders, including the

USAID mission. USAID may have a strong, capable, local partner to do the work, or if not, USAID may decide to bring in external assistance, opting for their own direct, bilateral agreement or using one or more component of this supply chain architecture.

Regardless of the option chosen, the mission can use this suite of awards for help, that help may be remote, and assist other stakeholders in country find solutions or assist local organizations provide solutions, or that help may be in country to provide solutions in strategy and a map for ongoing sustainable assistance through local organizations and stakeholders.

The mission may invite the single award IQC for procurement and technical assistance, or the multiple award for IQC -- excuse me -- the multiple award IQC for technical assistance, to come into the country to help through short- or long-term technical assistance.

So, our intent here is to give missions great flexibility, offering them choices for in country technical assistance and/or one-stop-shopping.

It is up to the mission if any component of this architecture is on the ground in country.

Just to restate or refresh on the components of this architecture, let me state them for reference because I’ll be referring to them by color for the rest of these remarks as a shorthand for their principle roles [Refer to slides #2 and #3 in attached document titled “MRilling Industry Day Presentation”].

The green box is the single award IQC for procurement and technical assistance. The yellow box is the single award IQC for laboratory procurement and is set aside for small business. The red box is the multiple award IQC for technical assistance. We are targeting up to four awards, of which we are targeting two for small business. The orange box is the contract for product quality assurance. The purple box is the contract for business intelligence and analytics.

You have read about and seen diagrams, including this one with the blue box. We are not discussing the blue box today as it is in the early stages of development and we don’t have anything to share with you on it yet.

We don’t intend yellow or purple to travel to country. They perform services mostly behind the scenes, yellow purchasing and delivering RTKs to country, Rapid Test Kits, to country, and purple providing and delivering data and information.

Purple serves as a data repository for both global procurement and logistics data as well as technical assistance, documents, and deliverables. It will also provide analytic support, dashboards, visualization tools to improve coordination, planning, and reporting among all the parties within the architecture as well as for USAID at headquarters and at missions, and for our partners and stakeholders. A wide variety of stakeholders around the world must be able to log in at any time.

Orange kind of looks like yellow. Orange is the quality assurance one, so that’s what -- looks that way here too. Orange interacts mostly with green and yellow to support their procurement activities, ensuring that products provided meet USAID’s requirements and shares data, reports, findings, and deliverables to purple each day. Orange will provide limited technical assistance to the field and that by special request and assignment.

If the mission chooses to use green for procurement, it may choose to use a local organization, a bilateral partner, or a partner of another stakeholder to do all of the technical assistance -- product selection, specifications preparation, demand planning, supply planning and ordering, et cetera -- or the mission can utilize red for this technical assistance.

The point I’m trying to make here is, the mission can use green for procurement without green being in country. The green business model, order entry capability, communication systems, data visibility systems, et cetera, needs to handle this scenario.

If a mission uses green and/or yellow for procurement services, then orange is involved for quality assurance and purple, for data and information behind the scenes.

If the mission uses green or red for supply chain assistance, then purple for data and information will be engaged behind the scenes.

Let me walk through several country scenarios about how missions may utilize these awards that I hope will clarify how we see this playing out.

Similarly, these examples highlight our expectations about the interactions between the various awards.

Country 1. [Refer to slide #4 in attached document titled “MRilling Industry Day Presentation”]

The mission just wants procurement services from the architecture. The mission will ensure that the technical work is done by others to guide green to do the needed procurement. If it is just for rapid test kits, green will collect the forecasts, supply plans, and other technical information, do any needed analyses, and past forecasts and orders to yellow, who will procure, ship, and track the RTKs to country.

If the mission’s procurement request is for other products, green will be responsible for receiving forecasts, supply plans, technical information, conducting the procurement, managing inventory, shipping and tracking products to country.

Green and yellow will coordinate closely with orange for quality assurance and automatically route detailed data to purple multiple times a day.

Country 2. [Refer to slide #5 in attached document titled “MRilling Industry Day Presentation”]

Here the mission just wants supply chain assistance.

In this scenario, the mission has two options, it can engage green through field support or a task order or it can engage red through a task order. Either way, the technical assistance can be one or more short-term visits or a long-term assignment including with the country office, or a combination of the two.

Whether green or red, they would upload technical assistance work plans, deliverables, financials, and other work products to purple for use in analysis by others. Green or red in country would have little or no interaction with yellow or orange, that’s why they’re grayed out here.

Country 3. [Refer to slides #6 and #7 in attached document titled “MRilling Industry Day

Presentation”] If the mission wants procurement services and supply chain technical assistance, of the three, this is the most likely scenario. Here the mission would engage green for all procurement and either green or red for technical assistance to support the procurement and to strengthen and improve performance of country supply chains.

It is likely that a mission will have only one of the two, green or red, in country, though a mission is free to utilize and have both if it chooses. Whichever is in country would be responsible for assistance to strengthen and improve the performance of supply chains, as well as to do all of the technical work to support the needed procurements and feed that information to green to manage and/or implement the procurement as well as the daily detailed uploads to purple.

Country 4. [Refer to slide #9 in attached document titled “MRilling Industry Day Presentation”]

The mission seeks assistance with local procurement.

Depending on the scope of work, the mission could engage green or red to provide the needed technical assistance, or even orange in a specialized way, perhaps. If the need is for green to procure from a local source, whether manufactured there or not, green would coordinate with orange for quality assurance.

Red would be involved and work with green on the procurement if the mission had already selected red to be the provider of supply chain technical assistance.

These scenarios provide merely an overview and illustration of how we see these awards operating.

There will be much more detail in the solicitation, so please pay careful attention to them. Also, these likely scenarios indicate why technical depth, broad knowledge, strategic mapping, technology transfer, visibility and transparency, partnerships, playing nice, diplomacy, having a service mentality, transition planning, and a reduced management burden, and value for money for missions, are critical selling points for missions about this architecture.

In closing, we want to be clear that the purpose of this suite of awards is not simply to continue the vital work currently performed under SCMS and deliver, but to transform the industry and the environment of the international health community to such an extent that in five or eight years, we will not have a need for another such set of awards.

Therefore, the successful bidder will need to do three things at once, keep pace with the programmatic demands of public health in saving lives, perform as the gold standard in global health supply chain operations and assistance with efficiency and value for money and accomplish USAID forward development objectives such as in strengthening and utilizing local organizations and capacities.

Thank you for your readiness and eagerness to join this effort.

(Applause)

MR. STANTON: Thank you very much, Mark.

Lastly, I’d like to turn to the topics of eligibility and timeliness. We are going to hear presentations from two critical people in the agency, first Gayle

Girod from the Office of General Counsel, followed

Sallie McElrath from the Office of Acquisition and

Assistance. Thank you.

MS. GIROD: I would like to echo what everyone else has been saying. Welcome today and it really is great to see a large group of people.

I’m here to talk about eligibility --really, conflicts of interest and I think it’s really, given the big group of people here that have lots of stickers that want to -- that have an interest in the different awards, it’s critical that you understand some of the conflicts that can arise in this architecture.

You’ve heard today of the interrelationship between the different awards and I think that this is

-- I mean, this is not the norm, this is not the way that USAID normally operates, that there would be such a large extent of reliance on different awards in a relationship between different awards, and so because of that, we’ve been really conscious of the conflict of interest issue from the very beginning.

And we issued language to try to clarify it, and I hope we did, to a certain extent, but we also received lots of questions on this and so we understand that it’s confusing. I’m a visual learner, so I’m going to try to have some slides here that will kind of help you think it through a little bit more.

I’d like you to note that we’ve pulled out a couple different conflicts that we’ve seen here, but it’s up to the contracting officer on each award to make a determination whether there is or isn’t a conflict of interest. So, again, we’re pulling out a couple here for you to be aware of because we don’t want you to waste time bidding on awards where we’ve already seen that there is an obvious conflict of interest, but I want you to keep these concepts in mind when you are bidding and deciding how you’re going to participate in the program because, again, if there is a conflict of interest, the CO has the right to make that determination and so I want you to be cognizant of that.

[Refer to slide #2 in attached document titled “Global Health Commodity Procurement Program

Conflicts of Interest”] So, we issued some language, and again, the interrelated nature of these awards, not the norm, so that’s why it’s really kind of such a hot issue here. So, I won’t read this. Hopefully you’ve all read this before because this is what generated a lot of questions.

[Refer to slide #3 in attached document titled “Global Health Commodity Procurement Program

Conflicts of Interests”] So, here is the architecture that we’re looking at and I would encourage you to not look at the language that I’m going to go over in a very mechanical way, but to think about what we’re really trying to get at here, and so I tried to pull out the elements of the different awards that we’re really focusing on.

So, in the green box and the yellow box, it’s the procurement element that’s really relevant to the conflict of interest that we’ve pulled out, and that’s because the quality assurance contract is going to be doing quality assurance on those procurements.

So, you could do your quality assurance on yourself, but we see there might be a bias there. So, again, think about the kind of work that you’re doing.

IN the business intelligence and analytics, it’s not quite as obvious, but that award will be reporting data daily, hourly, on the other awards. And so, think about that element as we’re talking about the conflicts.

Okay, so I’ll go over the language that we did put out. [Refer to slide #4 in attached document titled “Global Health Commodity Procurement Program

Conflicts of Interest”] So, here again we’re talking about the orange box, the quality assurance box, and if you are the prime for any of the procurement, the green or yellow, if you’re the prime for an award that has a procurement element, the green or the yellow, then you’re not eligible for the quality assurance contract, there’s a conflict there.

We didn’t find that there was a conflict for every subcontractor on the green and yellow. There are going to be numerous subcontractors doing a lot of different things and there’s not necessarily a conflict.

So, we have only highlighted that if you’re a subcontractor on the green and yellow, that’s engaged in one of the procurement functions, that you would be ineligible then for the orange box, the quality assurance.

Okay, so, I’m very visual, so, again, the visual. [Refer to slide #5 in attached document titled

“Global Health Commodity Procurement Program Conflicts of Interest”] So, the quality assurance not eligible for any of the procurement elements. All right, so the impartiality [Refer to slide #6 in attached document titled “Global Health Commodity Procurement

Program Conflicts of Interest”] -- I think this one is probably not as obvious as the procurement -- I mean, that’s procurement and QA is a conflict that comes up frequently, but under the business intelligence, it’s critical, we’re going to be getting data and relying in data from that award and it’s critical, critical that we can rely on that data as being completely impartial, accurate, and complete, and if a contractor is on any of the other awards in the architecture, there’s a concern that they may skew that data.

[Refer to slide #7 in attached document titled “Global Health Commodity Procurement Program

Conflicts of Interest”] So, visual, if you’re reporting on any of the other contracts through the business intelligence and analytics award, you are ineligible to perform anything on the other awards and that would be at a sub or a prime level.

And so, I guess the last thing is I know there’s still -- it could be questions because it is sort of a gray area sometimes of whether there’s a conflict. There will be an opportunity when the RFPs come out for more questions, but again, I encourage you to look at the language not so mechanically, but just to step back and think of the function that you’d be performing. Thanks.

MR. STANTON: Last but not least, Sallie

McElrath is the contracts officer, the Office of

Acquisition and Assistance, and I believe she is going to be talking to us about time. Thank you.

MS. McELRATH: Yes. Good morning, everyone.

Yes, I am one of the contracting officers working on this massive procurement. Again, my name is Sallie

McElrath and I will be the contracting officer on the single award procurement in technical assistance IQC, the big green box.

But I do want to introduce the other parts of our team from the Office of Acquisition and

Assistance who are here with us today. You can look over here to my left -- and please stand up -- so, myself, and then on the multiple award technical assistance IQC, the red, Alisa Dunn is here, on the business intelligence analytics contract, that’s purple, Cristina Sylvia and Joyce Clerge -- Joyce is here with us today -- on the laboratory procurement, the IQC yellow, we have Mir Ershadullah, and on the quality assurance IQC, Chris Nicola is here with us today. There is another CO working on that as well and with me also on the green box, Chris Egaas, who’s not here with us today.

But I did want to introduce the team. As I think you all understand better after hearing Mark’s presentation, this really is a complex procurement with this interaction.

And we’ve been working hard to try to understand it ourselves so that we can put it out in solicitations where it’s clear to all of you, that’s our job, and it’s not an easy one, I would like to say.

So, we really are all collaborating closely to ensure that the statements of work are consistent on common requirements and are…