LAC Regional Fund to Expand Inclusive Access to Quality Basic Education in the United Kingdom

Deadline: 03-May-2024

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is seeking applications for a cooperative agreement from qualified entities to implement the LAC Regional Fund to Expand Inclusive Access to Quality Basic Education program.

The Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) Regional Fund to Expand Inclusive Access to Quality Basic Education (henceforth “the activity”) will be a five-year cooperative agreement with the expectation of other non-USAID funding to be obtained to support the objectives. The primary goal of the activity expanded inclusive access to quality basic education for marginalized and vulnerable learners sustained over time.

The activity will work through local organizations across the LAC region, focused on but not necessarily limited to countries in which USAID has a presence in education through regional or bilateral programming. These countries currently include: Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, select English-speaking Eastern and Southern Caribbean countries, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, and Paraguay. USAID anticipates that the activity will issue multiple calls for sub-grant applications during the life of the activity, and the USAID LAC.

Funding Information

• USAID estimates to provide up to $25,000,000 in total USAID funding over a five-year period.

Outputs 

• Output 1: Sub-grants awarded to local organizations to expand their work in education and/or fund their ideas for new innovations: Under the regional funding platform, the activity will have a facility to provide sub-grants to local organizations that are currently engaged in or have ideas for innovative and/or scalable interventions that aim to address evidence-based barriers to improve inclusive access and/or foundational skills for specific marginalized and vulnerable groups.
• The following are illustrative examples of how the activity could organize the calls under the fund:
  • One call for sub-grant applications each year of the activity, and each call is focused on a different specific barrier/topic/age group/etc. in interested selected countries.
  • Multiple calls for sub-grant applications each year of the activity, and each call is focused on a different specific barrier/topic/age group/etc. in selected countries
  • Running or semi-running calls open to specific countries and topics on a continual basis until funds are exhausted.
• Examples of possible call topics supported by evidence USAID has gathered to date include, but are not limited to:
  • A call on helping countries to address the barriers that prevent their policies on guaranteeing access to learners with disabilities from being implemented in all schools/classrooms
  • A similar call on ensuring policies that guarantee access for migrants (especially those who speak a language other than the language of instruction) and returnees to education are actually implemented in schools.
  • One on ensuring migrants can continue to learn while on the move.
  • One on building the systems for remote access to education for children/youth who are out of school due to conflict/crisis/violence/and/or logistical barriers such as early pregnancy/motherhood, home responsibilities that make leaving home difficult, or distance to schools, etc.
• Output 2: Capacity strengthening interventions for local organizations completed: After conducting a diagnostic to assess the sub-grant recipients’ organizational capacity, the activity must develop a targeted plan to provide capacity strengthening interventions to meet the needs of the local organizations and objectives of the activity. Capacity strengthening may include the following illustrative tasks and interventions:
  • Register to work with USAID
  • Track future USAID and other donor grant opportunities
  • Write competitive proposals for USAID and other donor grant opportunities
  • Provide tools, resources, and technical assistance to conduct an eligibility checklist and/or Non-U.S Organization Pre-Award Survey (NUPAS) for future awards
  • Set up and implement monitoring, evaluation, and learning mechanisms
• Output 3: Evidence is generated and disseminated: the activity will develop a framework and preferably sustainable systems for rigorous measurement of equitable, inclusive basic education interventions. The expected Output 3 is that the activity will generate and then disseminate evidence based on which interventions are working and which are not, and why. Applicants should propose a dissemination plan for the evidence generated so that the sub-grantees, key local stakeholders in relevant countries across the region, as well as USAID and other donors gain access and are able to use it.
• The following are illustrative interventions for generating and disseminating evidence from the activity:
  • The applicant (or consortium member) utilizes their own existing LAC regional platform to make activity evidence publicly available to key stakeholders and identifies a way to make the platform sustainable.
  • The applicant partners with another entity to utilize their existing LAC regional platform to make activity evidence publicly available to key stakeholders.
  • The activity coordinates with other regional and local stakeholders to share out evidence via webinars, workshops, reports, and/or shadowing/lesson sharing trips.

Outcomes 

• Short-term Outcomes 
  • Outcome 1: Sub-grant implementation completed with fidelity
    • As sub-grants are awarded to local organizations, the sub-grants must have clear objectives and plans to demonstrably increase equitable access and/or improved quality of education (depending on the barrier highlighted in each call) for marginalized and vulnerable learners. To accomplish this outcome, sub-grants must have clear theories of change, and they must develop indicators aligned to each individual sub-grant’s theory of change to ensure fidelity of implementation. The following are illustrative examples of indicators to gauge fidelity of implementation in the sub-grants:
      • For an activity focused on providing learners with disabilities access to assistive technology for use in the classroom, they might expect to see indicators around percent of learners with disabilities with access to assistive technology, percent of teachers trained on supporting students in the use of the technology, level of teacher knowledge increase in use of assistive technologies, teacher/student incorporation of the technology in the classroom, teacher/student perception of the usefulness of the technology, percent who show improved learning outcomes, etc.
      • For an activity focused on providing learners who are migrants access to quality education in their new environment, they might expect to see indicators around the percent of migrant learners who are able to access schools, percent utilizing a mechanism that allows them to transfer education credit to a new school, percent actually getting credit under that system, percent who are supported in their transition to the new context through USG-supported school programs, percent who feel integrated into the new school, percent who attend class regularly, percent who show improved learning outcomes, etc.
  • Outcome 2. Organizational capacity of local organizations strengthened
    • As the activity provides capacity strengthening interventions for local education sub-grantee organizations to work with USAID, measure and adapt their interventions, and increase access and quality of education for marginalized groups, the activity must measure the change in these organizations’ performance and capacity in areas such as those listed as illustrative tasks and interventions under Output 2 of this activity. For this, the activity should identify and use a tool or assessment to measure changes in organizational performance. Applicants should propose the frequency of measuring sub-grantees’ capacity.
• Medium-term Outcomes 
  • Improved access to high quality education for marginalized and vulnerable learners
    • As local organizations implement their sub-grants with fidelity, USAID expects to observe over the medium-term (2-4 years) a demonstrable increase in equitable access and/or improved quality of education for marginalized and vulnerable learners. The activity must disaggregate access and quality education outcomes by marginalized and vulnerable groups to understand who is improving and who is not, and they should consider methods for exploring why this is the case, considering use of both quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques and phasing of data collection to allow exploration of outcomes.

Eligibility Criteria

• Eligibility for this NOFO is not restricted. USAID welcomes applications from all organizations, including those that have not previously received financial assistance from USAID.
• Public, private, non-governmental, multilateral, and faith-based organizations are eligible to apply for federal financial assistance on the same basis as any other organization and are subject to the protections and requirements of Federal law.
• USAID encourages but does not require applicants to propose cost sharing or to suggest other creative exchange of resource-matching arrangements for the award. There is not a required amount or percentage of cost sharing for the activity.
• USAID also encourages applicants to consider providing leverage from other sources in their applications applied to the proposed amount of USAID funding. Leverage, in contrast to cost sharing, does not become a binding requirement of the award if USAID issues an award. In this award, leverage means any non-USAID resources (excluding cost-sharing) that are expected to be applied to a program whether by the applicant or by a third party.
• To be eligible for this award, applicants and/or their proposed consortium must be proposing work only in the LAC region.

For more information, visit Grants.gov.