Deadline: 5-Oct-20
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is issuing this call to seek participants to co-create and co-design an activity to improve ways through which regional entities that have been developed by USAID – and their constituent members- assess, plan and build alliances.
USAID invites organizations, academic and research institutions, and companies to submit an Expression of Interest. The intent of the call is to allow co-creation and co-design to the maximum extent to create high quality, effective partnerships with great efficiency in time and resources. USAID will invite public, private, for-profit, and nonprofit organizations, institutions of higher education and/or research to co-create research and development (R&D) solutions to the Problem and Challenge Statements included in this invitation.
USAID intends to partner with a Ugandan organization to improve the ways through which regional entities that have been developed by USAID – and their constituent members – assess, plan, and build alliances. By doing so, this program will help districts in each region to come together and collectively identify problems, set priorities, and influence the national government, the private sector, and donors to find solutions to locally prioritized development challenges.
USAID/Uganda is facilitating regional partnerships as part of a multifaceted approach to advancing locally-led and locally-owned development. The Mission envisions that partnering with regional platforms is crucial in light of Uganda’s redistricting (or district proliferation) and its associated challenges.
Problem Statement
The regional platforms have the potential to elevate district issues, incorporate local voices in regional and national development plans, and attract private investment. They are, however, just getting off the ground and face several challenges. The platforms lack structure and resources and have varied capacities that hinder their ability to review, prioritize, and influence regional investments.
The challenges include:
- NURDEF is the only registered entity at the moment. While the Southwest and Karamoja platforms are still operating as informal entities, they have begun their legal registration processes.
- Despite the availability of office space for NURDEF and Karamoja platform in Gulu and Moroto respectively, they will need financial and administrative assistance to have functional secretariats.
- The platforms lack the capacity to coordinate and manage their stakeholders, including the various constituents and former SC members in the case of NURDEF.
- The regional platforms lack finances and were able to convene stakeholders and undertake research with the support of USAID.
- All the 28 districts that constitute NURDEF are expected to pay annual subscription fees and have not met these obligations.
- Political leaders may use these regional platforms for their own interests. Some district technical and political leaders also lack functional skills that are necessary for nurturing relationships with donors.
- SC members may attempt to inappropriately advance their political interests, especially ahead of local elections. More than one-third of the SC members are currently vying for various elective positions.
- Additionally, some SC members have harbored tendencies to advance personal and sub-regional interests over the regional/organizational interests. Some members have not been actively engaged and do not demonstrate commitment. The SC members hold some socio-cultural norms and values that will need to be addressed for the regional platforms to pursue socially-inclusive development. They will need assistance to address these personal leadership values that could undermine their overall goal.
Objectives
- Improve the administrative and technical capacity of regional platforms to engage, coordinate and manage stakeholders to collectively influence locally prioritized development: The local partner should enable Regional SCs to serve as viable and able forums to bring regional constituents and external development partners e.g. donors, researchers, national leaders, the diaspora, and the private sector together around collective needs. The activity will also facilitate the platforms to convene constituent members and share progress periodically through Annual General Meetings and enable the platforms to develop tools and approaches for resource mobilization.
- Improve the leadership skills of individual members of the platforms: The activity should assist individual steering committee members and secretariat staff to improve their leadership abilities in order to serve effectively in their assigned roles more effectively. The program will help them learn and adapt new skills for building relationships and socializing and monitoring strategic investment plans and projects. Assistance will be rendered to the SC members to appreciate the importance of gender-sensitive and socially inclusive leadership and to listen to the feedback of youth and often marginalized groups.
- Assist the regional platforms to attract and leverage private sector support and investments: The activity will provide the means for the platforms to collate and share information relating to investment opportunities, in order to facilitate deal making with the investors. The activity will help to fill a void created by the absence of private sector apex organizations such as the Private Sector Foundation, National Chamber of Commerce at the regional level. They will periodically convene roundtables and investment symposiums at regional and sub-regional levels to showcase and tap investment opportunities. They will leverage the various constituencies to promote and adopt smart investment choices including but not limited to those recommended by the National Planning Authority in the NDP-III.
- Strengthen research partnerships to inform local decision-making: The activity will guide and assist local research institutions in compiling research and evaluation products that will inform the execution of the regional strategic plans. It will enable the formalization of relationships between local universities, researchers, local governments, and non-state actors who currently partner on an ad hoc basis. A strong and vibrant local university partnership will facilitate community engagement and help both the member universities and regional platforms to translate research into development activities that communities can adopt.
Eligibility Criteria
Local entities or a consortium of local entities. A local entity means an individual, a corporation, a nonprofit organization, or another body of persons that—
- is legally organized under the laws of Uganda;
- has as its principal place of business or operations in Uganda;
- is majority-owned by individuals who are citizens or lawful permanent residents of Uganda; and
- Managed by a governing body the majority of who are citizens or lawful permanent residents of Uganda.
For more information, visit https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=329167