REQUEST FOR APPLICATION

About You

LINC is a mission-driven US-based small business organized around a commitment to local stakeholders leading their own development. Our experience shows that localization is a complex problem requiring both international and local stakeholders to shift our mindsets and change our practices. We work to achieve our mission through research on best practices, monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) to improve programming, capacity strengthening for both international practitioners and local actors, facilitating collective and collaborative processes, and implementing innovative programs. The recipient of USAID’s Small Business of the Year award in 2017, we are a team of reflective and passionate development professionals. Our country’s experience spans Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Europe. For more information on LINC, please visit www.linclocal.org.

In Ethiopia, LINC is implementing the five-year USAID-funded Resilience Learning Activity (RLA). The activity supports USAID and its resilience partners with learning, collaboration, and research around resilience issues in Ethiopia. RLA serves as a “learning sidecar” to USAID/Ethiopia and its implementing partners, helping them to better understand what relief and development interventions can help make households, communities, and systems more resilient to increasingly persistent shocks and stresses. RLA provides support with learning processes and frameworks, development and consolidation of learning and research agendas, and support to resilience partners for adaptive management, results measurement, and the increased integration of systems thinking and rapid feedback into their respective toolboxes.

RLA  is working with an international consultancy firm, TANGO International Inc, to  support the elaboration of a portfolio level resilience measurement framework over the course of several months in 2024. This portfolio level resilience measurement framework once tested will be of utility to resilience implementing partners in Ethiopia and global resilience practitioners, providing the community with more consistency in measurement and a pathway to “aggregate-up” the impact of resilience investments. RLA seeks to partner with local institutions with deep local knowledge and experience  to field test and validate the effectiveness and usability of the framework.

Detailed RFA Description

The USAID Resilience Learning Activity (RLA) invites qualified local organizations from here on referred to as grantee (s) to partner with RLA to field test a portfolio level resilience measurement framework currently under development. Through this process, RLA seeks to  help resilience programs understand what interventions and combination of interventions deliver the highest impact and improve the resilience of households, communities and systems to shocks and stresses. RLA seeks to work with local partners to expand their capacity and to be among the first to apply and refine a cutting-edge portfolio level resilience measurement framework.

RLA is committed to working with local institutions and strongly believes that a partnership will enhance the overall success of the initiative. RLA recognizes the valuable contributions of local partners who bring a depth of understanding of local contexts, who have strong networks and relationships, and are well positioned to ensure the sustainability of this work. This partnership seeks to strengthen grantees’ capacity and to position them as trusted leaders in resilience measurement in Ethiopia directly in line with USAID’s localization agenda.

The selected grantee(s) will work in close collaboration with RLA and TANGO to establish a quantitative and qualitative Recurrent Monitoring Survey (RMS). The Recurrent Monitoring Survey (RMS) will collect quantitative and qualitative information about household, community and institutional changes in resilience capacities, coping strategies, food security outcomes and exposure to shocks over time, as a result of USAID funded activities and other non-USAID funded interventions. Grantees best positioned will be ones with strong research qualifications, experience in field data collection and analysis and practical on-the-ground experience in various geographic locations of Ethiopia.

SCOPE OF WORK  AND DELIVERABLES

The selected firm as a grantee is expected to work in close collaboration with USAID RLA and provide the following key milestones:

1. Participation in a training from TANGO on the Resilience Measurement Framework and data collection toolbox
2. Inception report and work plan
3. Guidelines and training manual for the training of trainers on the resilience measurement framework
4. Field data collection, compilation, and analysis
5. Report on lesson learned from the pilot and recommendations for improvement
6. Final database, analysis, and visual presentation of aggregate data
7. Learning workshop co-hosted with RLA

How to Apply

APPLICATION INFORMATION AND TIMELINE

Applicants can request the full package of the RFA via email at: rlaprocurement@ethiopialearn.org or download here Any questions should be sent to RLA via email to: rlaprocurement@ethiopialearn.org with reference to the RFA No. RFA_AID15EthiopiaResilience001 not later than July 18, 2024.

Applications must be submitted in English, with the technical and financial proposals not exceeding 20 pages. Applications should be submitted electronically via email to: rlaprocurement@ethiopialearn.org with reference to the RFA No. RFA_AID15EthiopiaResilience001 in the subject line of the email.

The deadline for submission is 4:00 PM local time on August 09, 2024. The eligible firm must submit the General/Administrative document, Technical Proposal documents, & Financial Proposal documents.

RLA anticipates awarding the contract by September 2024. The expected end date of the contract is December 2024. LINC LLC has the right to adjust the timing based on the needs of the USAID Resilience Learning Activity (RLA).

APPLICATION REVIEW INFORMATION 

LINC will evaluate all offers for completeness and responsiveness to the RFA. Only those applicants who meet the administrative requirements will be considered for technical and financial evaluation. Proposals will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

Technical Evaluation (80%) = (Understanding of the scope of work -10%, Specific experience relevant to the research – 20%, Approach and methodology – 20%, Team composition -20%, and  Time frame and work plan – 10%)

Financial Evaluation (20%)

The financial evaluation will be done based on the best value for price analysis.  USAID RLA reserves the right to accept or reject all or any parts of the RFA at any time without assigning any reason whatsoever.