Deadline: 01-Jun-21
USAID/El Salvador is announcing the Basic Education Quality Advancement Addendum to the Higher Education for Leadership, Innovation, and Exchange (HELIX) New Partnerships Initiative (NPI) Annual Program Statement with an aim to engage locally based new and underutilized partners to expand and amplify the Agency’s work through and with higher education.
NPI seeks to support the partner countries’ achievement of sustainable and resilient results, and catalyze more effective partnering for impact.
Closing learning deficits in El Salvador through improved formal education and high school completion (traditional, flexible modalities, and/or general equivalency diploma) is critical to meeting private sector eligibility criteria for employing vulnerable population, which in turn will reduce the drivers of irregular migration by increasing employability of these vulnerable populations.
Purpose
This activity will improve the quality of BE in El Salvador by addressing key constraints and gaps in the foundational reading, math, and social and emotional skills of children and youth, inclusive of the most marginalized and vulnerable in targeted geographic areas. Improved foundational skills will enable children and youth to succeed in school and progress to higher grades.
Proposed interventions under this activity should focus on the following objectives:
- Objective 1: Improved safety, relevance, and quality of basic education foundational reading and math skills and psychosocial health of children and youth, including the most marginalized and vulnerable in target geographic areas.
- Objective 2: Strengthened HE capacity to sustain improvements in foundational skills and psychosocial health of students in target geographic areas.
Award Information
Issuance of this Basic Education Quality Advancement Addendum does not constitute an award commitment on the part of the U.S. Government, nor do those commit the U.S. Government to pay for any costs incurred in the preparation or submission of questions, comments, suggestions, Concept Notes, and/or Full Application. Applicants submit Concept Notes/Applications at their own risk, and all preparation and submission costs are at their own expense.
- USAID/El Salvador anticipates awarding one or more awards totaling no more than $25,000,000 under this Basic Education Quality Advancement Addendum. USAID reserves the right to not make any awards. Issuance of an award is subject to the availability of funds.
- The anticipated period of performance for this activity is five (5) years with an anticipated start date of on or about September 2021.
Programmatic and Geographic Focus
- Programmatic Focus: USAID/El Salvador anticipates that ultimately the Basic Education Quality Advancement activity will contribute to USAID’s Mission and objectives through successful achievement of one or more of the following outcomes and focal areas as leverage points in higher education programming:
- Increase Capability, Contributions, and Quality of Individuals: Individuals, whether faculty, researchers, staff, students, recent graduates, or others, play important roles in locally led development. Individuals that are within the local system are best placed to elevate solutions that can lead to sustained development gains.
- Enhance Sustainable and Self-Reliant Institutions of Higher Education: Strategically, as identified in the HELIX APS, outcomes will be best achieved within a country context by building local ownership and fostering partnerships across organizations and sectors, in particular higher education institutions. USAID/El Salvador strongly encourages Basic Education Quality Advancement recipients to partner with both local, regional, U.S. higher education institutions, non-HEI partners and leverage external resources to promote sustainable, long-term development impacts.
- Strengthen Higher Education Systems to Ensure Long-lasting Impact: Higher Education systems achieve sustainable outcomes through partnerships and leveraging of resources. Outcomes under the Basic Education Quality Advancement Activity will be best achieved by building local ownership, identifying common interests, and fostering partnerships and collaboration. It is equally important to have an enabling environment (including, but not limited to policy, private sector, innovation environment, etc.) primed for integrating promising findings and solutions into the appropriate channels for successful uptake and sustainability.
- Advance the Higher Education Evidence Base for Learning: It is anticipated that the Basic Education Quality Advancement Activity will contribute towards larger learning and building the evidence base concerning the role of higher education systems in achieving development objectives and the role of higher education as a central actor in development, regardless of sector in support of the Agency-wide Higher Education Learning Agenda, as well as specific learning priorities identified in Addendum
- Geographic Focus: The activity should be active in at least one of the three urban hubs in El Salvador: San Salvador, San Miguel, and/or Santa Ana.
Eligible Applicants
- USAID defines “Implementing Partners” as U.S. and non-U.S. non-governmental organizations that can design and implement assistance activities outside the United States. All Implementing Partners must be legally registered entities under applicable law and eligible under the relevant laws to receive funding from a foreign source.
- Individuals, unregistered, or informal organizations are not eligible to be Implementing Partners. NPI provides further details on eligibility, depending on the approach to partnership.
- Implementing Partners must also have a DUNS number and maintain current registration in SAM.gov to be eligible to receive United States Government (USG) funding.
- All eligible interested organizations are restricted to submitting only one Concept Note as the Prime Applicant.
For more information, visit https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=333216