Aid on Spreadsheets

E3 Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA)

The Office of Trade and Regulatory Reform (TRR) is overseeing a new mechanism for Missions and Offices to access technical expertise in a wide variety of EG-related specialties at the lowest cost to USAID. The E3 Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) creates a roster of U.S. consultants who can be engaged directly by USAID (with no overhead to consulting firms) for assignments lasting up to 90 days without contracting officer approval. TRR has a small but growing pool of experts available in trade, regulatory reform, economic analysis, finance, and enterprise development, among others. We anticipate retaining consultants in program design/development, monitoring and evaluation, and other areas over the next several months.

This program area covers components of program design and performance management and learning. This area supports assessment, special studies and analysis, strategic planning, program and project design, program monitoring (to include baseline studies and other data collection needs) and activities that support learning, knowledge transfer and adaptation of projects. Assessment includes the examination of the state of a country or sector context to inform project design but does not include evaluation of USG-funded activities (please see Program Area PO.3 for a definition of evaluation). Special studies or analysis could support strategic or project planning or include research for general learning that is not necessarily related to the performance of USG-funded activities. This program area may also include the preparation of strategic plans and other short-term programming tasks, assessment of the potential of information and communication technologies to enhance performance throughout the program cycle or dissemination of best practices and lessons learned. Evaluation is the systematic collection and analysis of information about the characteristics and outcomes of programs and projects as a basis for judgments, to improve effectiveness and inform decisions about current and future programming. Evaluations are distinct from (a) needs assessments, which are designed to examine country or sector context to inform project design, (b) internal informal reviews of projects and (c) audits (conducted either internally or by an external audience). Such efforts should not be included in PO.3. However, evaluability assessments -- those assessments completed with the purpose of determining whether or not an evaluation of an activity can be conducted -- should be included in PO.3. This program area should include all evaluations designed and funded with foreign assistance funding, including the components of contracts with task orders for evaluations (regardless of the mechanism). It should also include all independent contractors hired solely to produce an evaluation(s); all other contractors (e.g., those whose job responsibilities may include support or management of evaluation but not the production of an evaluation as a deliverable) should be placed in PO.2. Supports the following illustrative program-funded costs: salaries of US, FSN, and TCN and other staff such as PSCs, RSSAs, PASAs, CASUs working for the US Government managing, administering, and supporting programs and their program-funded benefits such as housing, travel, transportation, education allowances etc; institutional contractors that provide such staff, rent, IT services, the program-funded share of utilities, staff training costs and the cost of developing and administering training programs, equipment and supplies, ICASS, vehicle fuel and maintenance, maintenance contracts, janitorial services, operational unit web page development and maintenance, outreach such as publications and the cost of their preparation (including staff costs), and technical assistance to ensure USG compliance with regulations.

Project ID

US-GOV-1-LR-AID-OAA-C-11-00163

Activity status

3 - Completion

Aid type

C01 - Project-type interventions

% to Liberia

100.00

Organisations

Accountable

U.S. Agency for International Development

Extending

U.S. Agency for International Development

Funding

U.S. Agency for International Development

Implementing

GMG Management Consulting, Inc

CRS code	%
Trade facilitation (33120)	9.53
Unknown (0)	90.47