Building Local Capacity for Development (BLCD) Project

Added: Jun 11, 2012 8:10 am

The purpose of this Pre-solicitation Notice is to notify that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Mission to Azerbaijan intends to award a four-year Contract through full and open competition by issuing a Request for Proposal for the Building Local Capacity for Development (BLCD) Project in Azerbaijan.  The BLCD Project will support increases in the organizational and technical capacity of selected civil society organizations (CSO) active in engaging citizens in democracy, governance, health and economic reform efforts.

The Contractor must assist up to 20 USAID-selected Azerbaijan civil society organizations (CSOs) to develop into mature organizations operating at high professional levels, enabling them to effectively engage with their constituents, successfully support national initiatives for fostering strengthened democracy and good governance (DG) and fostering informed citizen engagement in public interest policy dialogue with the Government of Azerbaijan (GOAJ).

The Contractor through BLCD Project must provide support (technical assistance, training, logistics and commodity support) to strengthen Azerbaijani civil society's ability to be relevant, effective and sustainable partners in Azerbaijan's development processes.

Three Project Objectives have been defined to help guide implementation:

Objective 1:     Strengthen the organizational and technical capacities of key CSOs engaged in national, regional and community public interest agendas;

Objective 2:     Develop highly professional local CSO Resource Center(s), accessible to smaller and less capable CSOs working on public interest agendas; and

Objective 3:     Improve legal and regulatory frameworks to safeguard CSO enabling environments, sustainability and independent CSO public interest agenda roles.

Conceived as a three pronged capacity building and reform implementation effort, the Contractor must support USAID-selected public interest CSOs to:

a.         Improve CSO institutional strengthening processes through support for:  1) sub-sector assessments, 2) strategic planning for institutional strengthening and long term (beyond end of project) sustainability planning, 3) internal Human and Institutional Capacity Development (HICD) and/or other Total Quality Control Management (TQCM) administration systems , and 4)  introduction, implementation and organizational habituation of CSOs to internationally recognized "good NGO governance" practices.

b.         Strengthen CSO programmatic implementation, to include capacity improvements tailored to each CSOs public interest agenda focus and functional areas of:  1) program design and implementation; 2) implementation performance monitoring and evaluation; 3) network, coalition building and partnering for results; 4) monitoring; 5) conduct of assessments and evaluations; 6) public policy analysis and recommendations; 7) public information and education; and 8) use of new and innovative Information Communication Technologies (ICT) for social marketing, advocacy.

c.         Establish new and/or expand existing "CSO Capacity Development Resource Center(s)" by building capacity of key partner(s) to function as a full service Resource Center(s), by Year 4 of the activity.

The Request for Proposals (RFP) for technical assistance is projected to be issued around June/July 2012 on:  www.fedbizopps.gov.  USAID will not entertain questions until after the RFP is issued.  When the RFP is issued, any amendments thereof will be posted at:  www.fedbizopps.gov.  Interested parties are advised to periodically monitor the above website for updates concerning this procurement.

Prospective Offerors are advised that this procurement is subject to the availability of funds.  This pre-solicitation notice in no way obligates USAID to award a Contract nor does it commit USAID to pay any cost incurred in the preparation and submission of a proposal.