Deadline: 25-Apr-23
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is seeking applications for a Cooperative Agreement from qualified entities to implement the “Projet Paysages Résilients – Sud” program.
The purpose of the Projet Paysages Résilients – Sud (PPR-Sud) Activity (or the “Activity”) is to increase community, landscape, and climate resilience in the Southern Resilience Focus Zone (RFZ) by protecting and restoring ecosystem services on degraded highlands, using an integrated landscape management approach. Building on the foundation of decades of watershed management in Haiti, the Activity will hone in on key strategic sub-watersheds in the South Department, presenting shared restoration interests, as well as ecological and socio-economic benefits, for upstream/downstream communities and local decision-makers. This Program Description is grounded in the following key contextual realities of working in the landscape management sector in the Southern Resilience Focus Zone:
- Forested watersheds are essential for protecting socio-economic investments, safeguarding ecological functions and services and sustaining freshwater supply.
- Natural resources management interventions are more likely to succeed when primarily stakeholder-centered, guided by common interests and aligned with farmers’ and landholders’ economic and livelihood priorities.
- Well-managed watersheds can generate economic, social, cultural, and ecological
- benefits that sustain livelihoods and systems’ productivity.
- Haiti’s mountainous terrain makes erosion control a priority for landscape conservation and disaster risk reduction.
- Concentrating landscape management activities/investments in a strategic focus zone, with simple, focused, income-generating interventions that are market-driven, is more effective, efficient, and manageable.
- Programmatic design and planning are based on manageable needs and priorities, in close consultation with direct stakeholders.
- Concrete involvement of government, municipality, private sector and community stakeholders at early and all stages of the implementation processes is crucial for longterm commitment, collaboration, and transformational outcomes.
- Simple interventions within targeted communities or micro-watersheds aimed at triggering constructive changes are more effective than tackling structural constraints beyond the scope of the proposed Activity.
Guiding Principles
- Leveraging Existing Local Capacity
- Strategic Private Sector Engagement
- Systems approach to landscape management
- Innovative and strategic approaches to landscape restoration
- Targeted geographic scope
- Strong community/stakeholder engagement
Funding Information
- Award Ceiling: $15,000,000
Geographic Scope
- The Activity will be implemented in the Les Cayes Basin, within the Southern RFZ. Geographically focused interventions at the sub-watershed level are more likely to have demonstrable success in restoring ecosystem services, conserving watersheds, strengthening resilience to tropical
- storms, and stimulating uptake of sustainable landscape management practices that demonstratively improve environmental conditions and economic resilience.
- USAID recognizes the practical need to focus on more manageable sub-watersheds that do not always align with political or administrative boundaries, so interventions must take into consideration the socio-economic, environmental, cultural and political context in which the Activity will operate.
- Based on information collected during in-person site visits and meetings with stakeholders and responses to USAID’s Request for Information, the Activity areas should meet, but not be limited to the following selection criteria:
- Urgent need for landscape restoration due to the severity of environmental degradation and the proposed area’s contributions to ecosystem services and socio-economic benefits for local communities, upstream and downstream;
- Preventive measures upstream are required to limit adverse impacts on communities, investments, and ecosystems downstream that are vulnerable to climate risks;
- There is already an existing foundation of landscape restoration and stakeholder commitment to promote community-led sustainable sub-watershed management practices;
- Restoration scope is aligned with USAID’s and GoH’s strategic priorities for natural resource management and climate adaptation;
- Areas are near complementary land-use management and restoration activities implemented by Community Based Organizations or NGOs and could expand and improve landscape-level impacts by increasing the geographic extent of the interventions.
- The Applicant must propose restoration activities that are appropriate to each of the selected sub-watersheds, given the variation in the capacity of existing sub-watershed management groups, level and type of environmental degradation, and social, economic and cultural conditions of these areas.
Eligibility Criteria
- Eligibility for this NOFO is not restricted. USAID welcomes applications from organizations that have not previously received financial assistance from USAID.
- 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.
For more information, visit Grants.gov.