Deadline: 13-Dec-24
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is seeking applications for a Cooperative Agreement from qualified entities to implement the USAID Investment, Jobs and Income (IJI) program.
The purpose for the Activity is to advance the United States’ goal of a more prosperous and democratic Haiti by helping to strengthen the Haitian private sector, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to improve their managerial and operating performance and access the financing they need to grow, thereby creating jobs and fostering inclusive economic growth in Haiti.
This will support Haiti to take charge of its own development and provide a better standard of living for its citizens. The activity will create a project that aims to build up the capacity of Haitian and other finance providers to serve local SMEs, strengthen the network of local Transaction Advisors capacity to identify and prepare high potential SMEs for capital while creating trade and supply chain linkages in these SMEs’ targeted sectors.
Goal
- The goal of the Investment, Jobs and Income Project is to produce:
- A significant amount of new, additional financing catalyzed for Haitian businesses
- A significant number of businesses demonstrating performance improvement due to improved collaboration and linkages within their supply chains and trade networks
- A significant number of new jobs created
Theory of Change
- IF high-potential Haitian enterprises can access the financing they need to invest in growth:
- Strengthen their supply chain, capacity, and trade networks and linkages then those enterprises will grow and create jobs and contribute to overall economic growth in Haiti.
Funding Information
- Subject to funding availability and at the discretion of the Agency, USAID intends to provide $15 million in total USAID funding over a five (5) year period.
Eligible Activities
- Illustrative activities have been identified, are provided herein, and may include:
- Developing and supporting a finance provider network through a combination of lending incentives/risk buy-down and/or technical assistance, building upon and expanding the Haiti INVEST activity’s network;
- Engaging a pay-for-performance based network of transaction originators and business advisory services providers, building upon and expanding the Haiti INVEST network;
- Providing support for supply chain integration and trade linkages with the objective of demonstrable performance improvement;
- Developing a public-private Advisory Council to provide guidance and serve as a sounding board for enabling environment and other issues constraining business performance and a reference source for policy makers;
- Encouraging legacy Haitian investment facilitation capacity and/or investment facilitation entity.
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.