Northern Provinces Monitoring under Monitoring Support Project (MSP)

The overall objective of this Task Order is to provide USAID/Afghanistan with additional data on project implementation, allowing technical teams to compare information from their own monitoring efforts with additional sources of monitoring data, and make evidence-based management decisions on the performance of their projects. The TO will provide the Mission with sufficient, accurate, and verified information on the progress of projects within the geographic, programmatic, and temporal scope of MSP.

Specifically, the contract must perform the following technical requirements.

 A. Perform Project Verification for USAID/Afghanistan’s Technical Projects
     The main objective of this Task Order will be to provide USAID/Afghanistan with an additional layer of data on project implementation, allowing technical offices to compare information from their own monitoring efforts with additional sources of monitoring data, and make evidencebased management decisions on the performance of their projects. To achieve this objective, the Contractor will provide USAID/Afghanistan with sufficient, accurate, and verified information on the progress of technical projects within its portfolio in accordance with the approved project PMPs and Mission PMP.

 B. Build the Capacity of Local Organizations to Monitor Projects
        The Contractor will be required to work with local Afghan organizations, including civil society organizations, non-governmental organizations, private Afghan firms, and other entities in theNorthern Provinces to build their capacity in monitoring. These organizations shall be those the Contractor intends to rely on to conduct the verification and monitoring activities of USAID projects in the Northern Provinces. The Contractor must illustrate a viable plan to assess the Afghan entities’ capacities in key technical areas for project monitoring, and their capacity to carry out the necessary monitoring activities.


C. Conduct Environmental Compliance Monitoring
The purpose of this component is to ensure that all USAID projects in Afghanistan either have no adverse effects on the environment, or mitigate any potential impacts. All USAID/Afghanistan projects have one of four environmental threshold decisions (ETD): (a) Categorical Exclusion (CE), (b) Negative Determination (ND), (c) Negative Determination with Conditions (NDC), and/or (d) Positive Determination (PD).