"building climate resilience" activity

Subject to availabilty of funds, the United States Agency for International Development in Honduras (USAID/Honduras) intends to issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) for an anticipated five-year, cost-plus-fixed-fee (CPFF) completion type contract.  

The purpose of USAID/Honduras’s Building Climate Resilience (BCR) Activity (hereafter referred to as the “Activity”) isto strengthen the capacity of Honduran systems to withstand and respond to climate variability and change, thereby helping address underlying factors that contribute to irregular migration. 

The Theory of Change of this Activity is:

If Honduras’ most vulnerable sub-watersheds are managed fairly and equitably to increase their population’s ability to mitigate or adapt to environmental shocks; and  

If forest ecosystems are protected and managed in an inclusive, transparent, and equitable manner to enhance ecosystems services; and 

If climate risk mitigation strategies are implemented at the national, regional, and local levels;

Then Honduras will reduce its vulnerability to environmental shocks and stressors.

The main objectives of this activity are:

Objective 1: Improve water resources management. 

Honduras’ ability to adapt to climate variability and change—in a manner that doesn’t further divide and marginalize segments of the population—depends heavily on the equitable and transparent management of natural resources, particularly water. Integrated water resource management is essential to foster growth and resilience in key sectors of the economy, such as agriculture and tourism, and to sustain basic services such as domestic water usage. Accordingly, the Contractor will support the Government of Honduras and relevant stakeholders to address constraints in the water sector, including but not limited to: (1) lack of national, regional, and local capacities for gathering and maintaining credible hydro-meteorological data; (2) weak incentives at the local and regional level, and among public and private sector actors, to adopt and maintain certain measures and best practices (including inclusion and transparency) pertaining to watershed management and biodiversity conservation; (3) lack of political will to strengthen a culture of conservation and sustainable management within key sectors; and (4) duplicative and/or contradictory legal frameworks associated with conserving key water recharge areas. 
 

Objective 2: Conserve critical ecosystems.

The Contractor will tackle the main threats to biodiversity in Honduras—deforestation, forest pests, wildfires, expansion of agriculture, and overuse of natural resources—through engagement with the private sector, civil society, and national, regional, and local governments. The Contractor will work with these stakeholders to employ a variety of market- and non-market-based measures to create economic conditions that safeguard and strengthen, rather than deplete, ecosystems. These measures shall include viable incentives that lead to improved management and conservation of biodiversity, thereby ensuring the delivery of vital ecosystem services.

Objective 3: Manage climate risk.

The Contractor shall manage climate risk by increasing disaster preparedness and strengthening Honduran systems to cope with extreme weather events.

DISCLAIMER

The purpose of this notice is to comply with the synopsis and pre-solicitation notice requirements of FAR 5.2 - Synopses of Proposed Contract Actions. Furthermore, this activity has been included in USAID’s Mission Business Forecast. Any solicitation resulting from this notice will be handled in accordance with FAR 5.102(d); therefore, availability of any resulting solicitation package may be limited to this electronic medium.

This is not a solicitation. USAID/Honduras does NOT invite offerors to submit proposals in response to this pre- solicitation synopsis NOR will USAID/Honduras accept comments, questions and/or inquiries in response to this pre-solicitation synopsis and will NOT respond to any. NO awards are anticipated to be made in response to this pre-solicitation synopsis. Prospective offerors are advised to periodically monitor the above website for updates concerning this procurement. 

USAID/Honduras bears no responsibility for data errors resulting from this transmission. This pre-solicitation notice does not obligate USAID/Honduras to release a solicitation or award a contract nor does it commit the US Government to pay for costs incurred in the preparation and submission of a proposal.