USAID’s Office of Acquisition and Assistance (M/OAA) hosted a jam-packed virtual meeting on the latest business forecast and updates for the partner community. Here’s a brief summary.
Jami Rodgers, Director, Office of Acquisition and Assistance, reported on their FY 2024 numbers:
- USAID obligated more than $30.5 billion through 23,186 actions.
- Acquisition awards accounted for more than 24 percent of total dollars obligated.
- Cooperative agreements accounted for approximately 20 percent, and
- Grants (not including PIOs) accounted for 11 percent.
- Interagency agreements accounted for less than 1 percent.
- Public International Organization (PIO) grants accounted for more than 43 percent.
- Preliminary Data on Direct local funding shows an increase from FY 2023—final data will be released in the coming months.
- Funding to U.S. Small businesses reached $1 billion, which represents around 13.7% of acquisition awards.
- $301 million awarded via Fixed Amount Awards, which is a nearly 25% increase from FY 2023.
- 240 new partners in FY 2024, a 20% increase of new partners from FY 2023.
- Exceeded all Category Management goals.
Chris Nikola, Strategy Team Lead, M/OAA, reported progress on the A&A Strategy of workforce empowerment, process streamlining and diversifying partnerships. A few highlights:
- A key metric is that USAID CO/AOs obligated an average of $106.2 million in FY 23 compared to DoD CO/AOs who obligated an average of $16.9 million, a growing gap that illustrates the workload and staffing challenges at USAID.
- A new staffing pipeline was established through a Certification Fellows Program with Fayette State University (FSU).
- Expanded administrative warrants for FSN/CCNs.
- Burden reduction through automated pre-award checklists and updated templates.
- Enhancement of WorkwithUSAID.org in providing centralized resources for potential partners as well as live links to funding opportunities.
Kimberly Ball, Director, Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) also reported that they exceeded the $1 billion threshold of funds obligated to U.S. small businesses in FY 2024.
- In FY 2025, they will continue to push increased use of small and small, disadvantaged businesses directly and through subcontracts.
- OSDBU will host a session with large implementing partners to share the areas where they need subcontracting support over the next 18-24 months. Registration will be posted in SAM.gov.
- They are also planning an overseas conference in Lima, Peru in March 2025.
Stacey Young, USAID’s Chief Knowledge Officer introduced their recently launched Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning (KMOL) policy. The intent of the policy is to improve USAID’s ability to use its accumulated knowledge in applying lessons learned to achieve better results. Read more of the details in the slides.
Amanda Vigneaud, Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, spoke on USAID’s “Building Bridges In Development: USAID’s Strategic Religious Engagement Policy.”
Representatives from the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) introduced their recently launched “Policy on Locally Led Humanitarian Assistance.”
A representative from Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) gave an overview of their development program, procurement processes and where to find procurement opportunities. DFAT programs in many of the sectors in which USAID is active. Their development budget is approximately US$3.2 billion per year, of which about $700 million is open to competitive contracts. Details are in the slides.
Finally, Matt Johnson, Director of Communications and Industry Liaison for M/OAA, gave an overview of the results of their 2024 Partnering Experience Survey, noting that the full report will be out by the end of the year.
Among the findings of the survey are:
- Reported Barriers
- Applying for funding and understanding how to work with USAID remain the highest barriers for organizations.
- Identifying funding opportunities decreased as a “barrier by process.” This may be attributed to the launch of M/OAA’s funding feed and additional outreach efforts by USAID staff.
- Top Barriers
- Bias towards types of organizations saw the largest increase.
- Regulations and Capacity were the themes that decreased the most.”
- Reported Helpful Practices
- Many respondents noted that communication with agency staff is one of the most helpful practices the agency can use to build relationships, but accessing staff to communicate with is still one of the barriers that impacts the partnering experience.
- Industry engagement and WorkwithUSAID.gov remained the most helpful practices.
- Communication was the largest decrease as a helpful comment.
- Takeaway: when the Agency’s best practices, processes, and tools are used as intended, they create opportunities for partnership.
- On WorkwithUSAID.gov, the Resource Library and Partner Directory were the most tagged.
The briefings are useful in keeping USAID’s implementing partner community informed. The quality of communication is also evident in the responses provided to the 2,900 questions raised on the business forecast for this quarter alone.
