Deadline: 5 October 2016
The United States Agency for International Development in Bangladesh (USAID/Bangladesh) is seeking Expression of Interest (EoI) for a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) from qualified U.S. and non U.S. organisations to fund an activity entitled “Climate Resilient Enterprise and Innovation Design (CREAID)” with an aim to seek opportunities to co-create, co-design, co-invest, and collaborate in the development of a grant-making challenge fund mechanism focused in the area of climate resilience innovation and enterprise in Bangladesh.
The focus of this BAA is to select a small group of collaborators who will come to Dhaka or a regional location to develop a concept note, and pending further review/approval, co-design a grant-making mechanism that aims to fund innovative approaches and enterprising solutions that improve the well-being of marginalised and vulnerable poor, including women and girls, and improve their resilience to the risks posed by climate change and extreme weather events (e.g., floods and drought).
Through the BAA, USAID will involve the donor and development community in the collaborative design of new climate solutions in Bangladesh.
Funding Information: Under this mechanism, USAID/Bangladesh anticipates issuing one or more awards within the range of $5 million to $30 million.
Approaches
- Resilience, as defined by USAID, is “the ability of people, households, communities, countries and systems (social, economic, ecological) to mitigate, adapt to and recover from shocks and stresses in a manner that reduces chronic vulnerability and facilitates inclusive growth.”
- System-based approach to further understand local challenges and opportunities, inter-dependencies, and leverage points to focus on solutions.
- Harnessing a broader application of data collection and testing approaches to demonstrate or finance scalable solutions for improved service delivery that results in reducing vulnerability and improving well-being/livelihoods of poor.
- Autonomous innovation is an inductive (nonexpert), indigenous (local), inexpensive (frugal) and intuitive (good enough) approach to attaining low cost, community-based adaptation to climate change. Autonomous innovation can occur when communities have strong social networks; within cultures that favor creativity and experimentation; when communities are frugal, yet aspirational; and with a conductive political-economic environment .
- Private sector engagement includes but is not limited to demonstrating and scaling innovative products and services to support climate resilience, specifically targeting under-served urban or other sub-national areas; encouraging businesses to mitigate risk of shocks to their value chains and workforce capability; leading resilience building
- processes in their community or sector; and leveraging financial investments in new social enterprises and market based solutions.
- Empowering women and ensuring the safety of girls is important when considering that, in general, assets and livelihood options of Bangladeshi females are lower than males; the health effects of climate change more adversely affect women and girls’ sanitation, hygiene and health; and child marriage rates (29 percent of Bangladeshi girls marry before age 15) is a norm for poor households in response to economic shocks
General Criteria for Consideration
- Idea/Approach: Soundness of the idea/approach and its relevance to the problem articulated above and approaches sought (section III). The potential integration of any given idea/approach, its potential impact, pledged resources, and the experience of the organisation with the other EOIs submitted in this process. USAID intends to select a diverse group of organisations to continue into the co-creation phase, including development partners and other resource partners. Approximately five organisations will be invited to create alongside USAID and other development partners.
- Organisational Experience: A brief description of your organisation’s experience and/or expertise with regard to the objective of this BAA, as well as a demonstrated organizational capability to partner with other organisations.
- Individual CV/Bio and Ability to participate: A very brief statement of the individual’s experience/qualifications for this (BAA) task. (Note: Individual(s) from the submitting organization must be available to participate in meetings from mid to late November 2016 in Dhaka, Bangladesh or a regional location to be determined, to develop the ideas
- presented while working alongside USAID staff and other organizations selected to participate. USAID and collaborating development partners will provide the venue and lunches during meetings, but no additional compensation (travel, lodging, per diem, etc.) will be provided to participants.
Eligibility Criteria
- Public, private, for-profit, and nonprofit organisations, as well as institutions of higher education, public international organisations, non-government organisations, US and nonUS government organizations, multilateral and international donor organizations are eligible under this BAA.
- All organizations must be determined to be responsive to the BAA and sufficiently responsible to perform or participate in the final award type.
For more information, please visit grants.gov.