USAID: Climate Adaptation Activity (Dominican Republic and Haiti)

Deadline: 03-Aug-2023

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is seeking applications for a Cooperative Agreement from qualified entities to implement the Climate Adaptation Activity.

The United States Agency for International Development in the Dominican Republic’s (USAID/DR) resilience interventions including the Climate Adaptation Activity are planned as part of USAID/DR’s Border Resilience Project under USAID/DR’s 2020-2025 Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS).

This Activity targets the DR-Haiti northern border provinces of Santiago Rodríguez, Montecristi, and Dajabón which are home to important transboundary watersheds that supply water for human consumption, irrigation, and industrial use for towns on both sides of the border. These provinces have seen the highest increase in population density and city growth relative to other provinces in the region.

Purpose

• The purpose of the Climate Adaptation Activity is to build climate change resilience by promoting water security and sustainable livelihoods through reduced pressures on key water sources, enhanced watershed governance, and strengthened adaptation practices of vulnerable communities. This Activity will support locally-led development and catalyze private sector engagement to promote ownership and sustainability of climate adaptation actions, and their mitigation co-benefits, in the northern border region between the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Development Hypothesis

• If strong community engagement is fostered and financial opportunities are created to:
  • Reduce pressures on key ecosystems in the Artibonito and/or Dajabon watersheds;
  • Implement nature-based and climate-smart adaptation solutions to strengthen water security for all users;
  • Strengthen governance for climate-responsive integrated watershed management and planning benefiting water users;
  • Include user-informed climate services, including in critical farming, household, and industrial water-related decision-making.
• Then target communities and ecosystems will have increased water security and be more resilient to the impacts of climate change.

Results Framework

• Objective 1: Pressures on key ecosystems are reduced through sustainable forest management supporting climate change adaptation in targeted watersheds.
  • Acknowledging forest protection carries a strong community engagement component, efforts under Objective 1 will seek to increase community participation, including youth and women, in forest protection and restoration activities, such as:
    • adopting alternative forms of cooking, such as gas stoves, to decrease the demand for fuelwoods;
    • strengthening community participation in locally-led monitoring and reporting of land-clearing events and other illegal activities;
    • promoting local reforestation and source water protection efforts.
  • Community-led forest protection and restoration initiatives will be implemented in targeted watersheds with special emphasis in protected areas, buffer zones, and steep slope forests.
  • Objective 1 will engage with watershed councils, the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, and other local and transboundary actors to advance reforestation, source water protection measures and seed bank projects, cultivating cross-border collaboration with similar projects on the Haiti side while also promoting the involvement of youth, women and other vulnerable groups.
• Objective 2: Climate smart practices are adopted by local farmers and the private sector, to increase resilience to the impacts of climate change.
  • Agriculture and animal husbandry are among the main economic activities in the target watersheds, and are especially critical for subsistence farmers in the border region of the Dominican Republic.
  • Objective 2 seeks to:
    • improve the technical capacities of small- to medium-scale farmers to use water efficiently so as to adapt to climate change;
    • strengthen farmer’s associations to better negotiate with clients and produce more and higher-quality products;
    • engage with the private sector to develop climate-resilient business models for long-term sustainability.
  • Through this objective the Activity will promote the adoption of climate-smart agriculture and sustainable alternatives to cattle ranching. The Activity will increase the technical and financial capacity of local producers to implement climate-smart agricultural and ranching practices, improving their ability to prevent, respond and adapt to climate risks, such as addressing flood control, reducing soil degradation, diversifying crops, etc.
  • Objective 2 will support farmer associations and/or cooperatives at the local level whose members already grow cash crops, such as coffee and cacao, by improving their technical, organizational, and financial capacities.
  • Finally, Objective 2 relies on identifying private sector partners and connecting them with farmers, associations, and cooperatives to jointly develop business models that include climate considerations and promote climate-smart products, including exploring co-investment partnership opportunities with the private sector directly. This objective will build the capacity of communities to identify climate risks related to their economic activities and will strengthen engagement and partnerships with the private sector and other relevant stakeholders to support adaptation and access financing opportunities to implement these solutions.
• Objective 3: Watershed governance is strengthened to benefit water users through an integrated climate-sensitive approach.
  • First, Objective 3 will seek to improve climate-resilient watershed management planning and budgeting among local authorities, at the municipal, watershed and subwatershed council levels.
  • Objective 3 will focus on supporting coordination between watershed councils on both sides of the border, facilitating dialogue platforms, improving clarity around the roles and responsibilities of different actors in each country, and promoting common understanding of priorities and plans.
  • Objective 3 will advance the identification of potential funding sources for implementation of such plans, and support preparations for the early stages of implementation, as needed.
• Objective 4: Climate services are used by local stakeholders, including farmers, water service providers, and government officials, in critical decision making to improve their water security and adapt to climate change.
  • Objective 4 will build the capacity of water users to use hydrometeorological early warning data for early action to promote resilience.
  • Objective 4 will support the interpretation of data into meaningful information that best suits stakeholders’ decision-making needs in the field. This includes using a participatory and locally-led approach to select the best tools for accessing climate information, while considering the socio-economic context of the Activity.
  • Objective 4 seeks to establish public-private partnerships from the outset in order to create financial sustainability for the provision of such climate information and the necessary tools. Partnerships with universities, government entities, and NGOs can provide leverage and promote continuity beyond the Activity’s timeline.

Funding Information and Duration

• USAID intends to award a Cooperative Agreement pursuant to this notice of funding opportunity.
• Subject to funding availability and at the discretion of the Agency, USAID intends to provide US$10,000,000.00 in total USAID funding over a five (5) year period.

Geographic and Population Targeting

• Applicants must choose to work in either one of the two watersheds where proposed activities can maximize impact and promote the scale up of climate action.
• Activities must be designed at the sub-watershed level, and Applicants must provide a strong justification for the selection of at least one sub-watershed within the selected watershed where activities will take place to allow for scalable interventions and effective monitoring.
• Activities must focus in middle and upper watershed regions.
• Activities will be implemented on the DR side of the border, however, coordination efforts with Haiti are required.
• The Award Recipient will be expected to leverage or strengthen existing transboundary coordination mechanisms, such as watershed councils, that would help advance integrated watershed management.
• When selecting implementation sites, the applications should address the success and financial, environmental, and social sustainability of the Activity.
• The below principles should help frame the sustainability strategies of the Activity and to aid the selection of target sub-watersheds:
  • Partnerships with GODR
    • The Activity should seek commitment by GODR to improve water resource management in key transboundary watersheds. The success of the Activity will rest on a strong partnership and collaboration with GODR at the national and local levels.
  • Engagement with local communities and local organizations
    • Local non-government organizations are considered as important stakeholders for the implementation of this Activity through collective action approaches. The Activity should seek commitment by communities and other stakeholders at the local level, and across both sides of the border to collectively address shared challenges related to land degradation and unsustainable natural resources management.
  • Private sector partnerships
    • The Activity should identify key areas that would benefit most from private sector contributions and how these contributions help achieve Activity goals faster, cheaper, more efficiently, more inclusively and sustainably.
  • Integration and system-driven development
    • The Activity must be able to show ability to intentionally integrate the whole system to contribute to the overall implementation success in an equitable way and through locally-led approaches.
  • Innovation and technology
    • The Activity should utilize available innovative tools to improve the capacities of stakeholders, climate services, climate-smart interventions, monitoring and implementation, and engagement with communities in awareness raising and behavior change campaigns.
  • Elevating youth (aged 10-29 years) and promoting gender and social inclusion
    • The Activity should take into account sensitivity towards specific needs and impact on women, youth, and vulnerable populations, including but not limited to people with disabilities, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual, Queer, and Intersex (LGBTQI+) community, migrants, Dominicans of Haitian Descent, and undocumented people.
  • Focusing on impact and scale
    • The Activity must work at a broader scale to successfully promote water security and climate resilience, so it is critical to take impact and scale into serious consideration.
  • Collaboration with other donors
    • The Activity must explore when appropriate the potential for leveraging ongoing or recently closed initiatives funded by other donors, in addition to potential for collaboration and complementarity with USAID/Haiti and/or other USAID/DR activities along both sides of the northern border region.
  • Site selection
    • Areas where unsustainable agriculture production and water management practices, deficient infrastructure – transportation and irrigation systems – have led to serious environmental degradation, putting at risk key economic activities and resilience capacity of communities living along the watershed.

For more information, visit Grants.gov.