While in the lecture we talked about the many forms that foreign aid comes in, for this post we will focus on Official Development Assistance (ODA). Specifically, the programs undertaken by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
First, go to https://www.fbo.gov/index.php?s=agency&mode=form&tab=notices&id=092fed1473b306eb0b0f6be7ba456f80 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. and find a contract listing by USAID that interests you. USAID puts out both solicitations for personnel and requests for proposals (RFPs). You are looking for an RFP listing. Narrow your search by imputing keywords of interest such as “water,” “agriculture,” or “health” into the search bar. Specific countries also work.
When you have found a listing page for a project that you think is interesting, I want you to provide a summary of the project. To find information within a page, such as this one for a “Water Pipe Expansion and Provision of WASH Services in Health Facilities” project (https://www.fbo.gov/index.php?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=5091ab61bd15129e70d52e29f9782939 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.), read through the documents posted on the page. For example, in the RFP document for this project, the following is stated:
SECTION C – DESCRIPTION/SPECIFICATIONS/STATEMENT OF WORK
C.1 BACKGROUND
The water pipeline expansion in Sanniquellie and Voinjama will include furnishing, installing and constructing new water main distribution pipeline for each city’s water utility. The objective is to expand each city’s water pipeline to increase opportunities for private connections in each city, complementing the existing water distribution system. The objective of the second task under this contract is improving health service delivery at 24 health facilities (HF) by constructing reliable water and sanitation infrastructure.
Do some reading and looking around and you will get a fairly good idea of what USAID is wanting to accomplish with the project. Information to include in your summary are the location of the project (the country and area within), the motivations for the project, who the stakeholders of the project are, and both the material and overall objectives. With the latter, I want you to explain both the goals of the physical on the ground work being conducted, as well as how this work will lead to some greater benefit for the society as a whole in the context of the motivating factors.
Then, I want you to assume the role of the development industry practitioner. If you were asked to provide a formal response for your chosen project, how would you outline the first steps that you would take in formulating and articulating your plan of action as you would present in your proposal submission to USAID. You are not fleshing out the entire plan, but rather, thinking about what information do you believe would be useful and/or pertinent to have if you were to write the entire plan. Think of it similar to how a business performs market testing and consumer research when seeking to unveil a new product.
Lastly, go back to the list of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/ (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.), and make the connection between the project you looked at and how it relates to one or several of the goals. This is a step that a fair number of you have been leaving these out in previous posts.
Don’t worry if you are unable to finish this by the deadline, but give a good effort. I’ll be very interested in seeing what projects everyone finds.
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