Deadline: 17-Jan-25
The United States Agency for International Development is seeking applications for Enhancing Nutrition Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning in the Health Sector Activity (NuMERAL) Program.
Achieving optimal nutrition and early childhood development (ECD) outcomes at scale mandates new ways of working and learning. This involves bringing together a diverse group of health sector leaders, program implementers, policymakers, and researchers to collaboratively generate and use evidence in shaping holistic policies and programs.
The NuMERAL Activity is a 5-year (2023–2028) project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by RTI International and partners.
NuMERAL’s goal is to fill evidence gaps and enhance nutrition and ECD outcomes implemented through health systems, as well as interventions aiming to improve the nutrition, health, and general well-being of individuals and populations. NuMERAL works with local partners to strategically design, implement, disseminate, and use such evidence to strengthen policies and programs that improve human nutrition at the national, regional, and global level.
Focus Areas
- NuMERAL is committed to supporting local research, monitoring, and evaluation, and translating findings to inform country-level and cross-national learning, collaboration, and action across the following three focus areas:
- Mainstreaming nutrition in reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health policies and services
- Integrating responsive caregiving and opportunities for early learning into nutrition policies and programs
- Improving assessment and prevention of micronutrient deficiencies and anemia.
Types of Research
- Types of research studies supported under this REOI and illustrative examples:
- The study designs for the research studies that they will support under this REOI will depend on the proposed research aim and question. Types of research studies that can address the aforementioned domains include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Operations research, process evaluation, quality improvement/assurance, and monitoring and evaluation.
- Cross-sectional, small-scale comparative studies
- Longitudinal quantitative analyses with secondary data.
- The study designs for the research studies that they will support under this REOI will depend on the proposed research aim and question. Types of research studies that can address the aforementioned domains include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Illustrative research activities:
- The examples below are brief illustrative ideas from the four domains of iodine surveillance. These are indicative of potential field studies—they are not indicative of NuMERAL priority ranking. Other domains, and research ideas are welcome, within the scope of the learning question:
- Use of health facilities to integrate iodine surveillance into routine surveillance approaches reaching children, women of reproductive age, and pregnant women.
- Evaluation of sentinel surveillance methods to identify geographical areas and/or population groups with iodine deficiency.
- Modelling analysis to determine the optimal study design (including sampling frame and sample size for iodine status studies/surveillance methods using existing data.
- Cross-sectional population-based study assessing iodine status and thyroid function alongside. This can for example be done by adding thyroid function parameters to an already planned mUIC study.
- The examples below are brief illustrative ideas from the four domains of iodine surveillance. These are indicative of potential field studies—they are not indicative of NuMERAL priority ranking. Other domains, and research ideas are welcome, within the scope of the learning question:
Funding Information
- NuMERAL anticipates issuing three to six sub awards with an expected value of U.S. dollar (USD) 30,000 to USD 50,000. This range may be refined after the co-creation process. The performance period for each sub award is expected to be up to 8 months.
Eligible Countries
- All applicants must be based in a country with a USAID presence and are required to be registered in the country of operation. Regional or international organizations (based in a country with a USAID presence) are required to be registered in one or more of the countries they operate in.
Ineligible Countries
- Organizations based in the following countries are not eligible for funding under this solicitation, but may be eligible under future solicitations: Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Belarus, Burma, Chad, China, Colombia, Cuba, Curaçao, Djibouti, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Guinea Bissau, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Macau, Mexico, Nicaragua, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Saint Maarten, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Syria, Trinidad & Tobago, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Venezuela, West Bank/Gaza, and Yemen. Interested institutions from these countries could approach NuMERAL to check eligibility for future opportunities.
Eligibility Criteria
- The REOI is open to the following eligible organizations:
- Universities or other research or learning institutes
- Parastatals
- Community-based organizations
- Civil society organizations
- Nongovernmental organizations
- Private sector companies.
- NuMERAL encourages EOIs from:
- Organizations based in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
- Local or regional organization (based in a country with a USAID presence). A local organization is defined as an organization that is legally organized under the laws of the same country of the proposed work and has its principal place of business or operations in the same country of the proposed work. Local organizations are required to be registered in the country of operation. Regional organizations (based in a country with a USAID presence) are required to be registered in one or more of the countries they operate in.
- Local organizations in USAID’s 18 Nutrition Priority and Nutrition Strategic Support Countries: Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, Haiti, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.
- Organizations led by diverse groups that include women, people with disabilities, minorities, and other populations.
Ineligibility Criteria
- The following types of organizations are not eligible to receive funding under this REOI:
- Political parties, groupings, or institutions, or their subsidiaries and affiliates
- Government entities
- Organizations that appear as ineligible on the System for Award Management (SAM), UN 1267, and/or OFAC/SDNBP lists
- Organizations that promote or engage in illegal activities or anti-democratic activities
- Faith-based organizations that are not in compliance with ADS 303.3.28, which is in accordance with Executive Order 13279, Equal Protection for the Laws of Faith-based Community Organizations, and/or whose objectives are discriminatory or religious in nature
- An organization that refuses to register for a unique entity identifier (UEI)
- Organizations that are not legally registered in the country of implementation
- Any entity that has been found to have misused USAID funds in the past 3 years
- Organizations that are employers of or managed by staff from USAID, RTI, APHRC, icddr,b, or the University of California Davis that work on the NuMERAL Activity, or their immediate family members.
For more information, visit USAID.