Steve Peacock's U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor

Spreading the G.O.L.D.: U.S. to Spark Small Biz Growth

Small businesses soon can expect a boost of support from the Obama Administration, which is launching the Growth Oriented Local Development, or GOLD, program -- in the Southeastern European nation of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Obama through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) last week alerted vendors to potential program-contracting opportunities via a presolicitation notice that U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor located during routine database research.

Despite an end to civil war fifteen years ago -- and in spite of about $8 billion in post-conflict, international donor support -- that nation continues to lag "behind its neighbors’ political and economic progress," USAID says in its Country Development Cooperation Strategy 2012-2016 (.pdf, 18 MB).

The "overarching objective" of the U.S. "is to help a stable, prosperous, sovereign, democratic, and multi-ethnic BiH become fully integrated into Euro-Atlantic institutions (the EU and NATO)." Critical to achieving U.S. foreign policy objectives are programs centering on "youth, civil society, empowering women, and inter-ethnic reconciliation," the strategy indicates.

USAID will issue a formal Request for Proposals for the GOLD project around Feb. 15. The agency said in a presolicitation notice that it expects to jointly fund the program in conjunction with the Swedish International Development Agency, or SIDA.

USAID stated, albeit vaguely, several project goals including:

Improving local economic development management capacity;

Spurring economic activity through increased public-private partnerships;

Strengthening private sector capacity, "resulting in increased skill levels of employees in the private sector and an increase in the number of local supply chain networks and the economic value they generate."

USAID did not disclose GOLD's estimated cost.

Source document: Solicitation #SOL-168-13-000002.

FOR FURTHER REPORTING ON THE U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, PLEASE VISIT THE MONITOR'S USAID PAGE.

U.S. Crafting New Economic Recovery Plan

The damage caused by the global financial crisis requires additional federal intervention, according to the Obama Administration, which is launching a new program to “foster growth and stability at a time of increasing economic turmoil.” This particular endeavor, however, will focus its efforts on improving conditions in Eastern Europe, the Western Balkans, and the “newly independent states,” or NIS, of the former Soviet Union.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is designing this Europe & Eurasia (E&E) regional project in order to “promote trade, investment and regulatory integration; enhance regional competitiveness, and support financial sector stability.”

The agency did not disclose an estimated cost of the program, which remains under development. It is conducting market research of potential contractors capable of carrying out services in the region. USAID may—or may not—release a more detailed solicitation at a later date.

If indeed it executes this project, USAID will target thirteen nations where USAID already has established a presence, “including the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia), Western NIS (Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus), Russia, and the Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan).

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According to a Sources Sought Notice that U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor located via routine database research:

Despite the tremendous progress made over the years, many of these countries are still struggling to regain the living standards that they enjoyed under communism and to integrate themselves into the ever more competitive world economy.  Furthermore, the region has been disproportionately adversely affected by the 2008-2009 global economic crisis and, now, by the ongoing Eurozone financial crisis… Several countries in the region have unemployment rates above 20%, labor productivity remains well below the EU standards, and export growth rates have stagnated. 

The four “principal technical areas” for which contractors may provide services include:

            1. Regional Trade Facilitation;  

            2. Private Sector Competitiveness and Enterprise Development;

            3. Business Enabling Environment (meaning, support of “legal and regulatory reform and rule of law issues”); and:

            4. Financial Sector Stability, Growth & Inclusion.

USAID will accept capability statements from interested providers until June 11 at 2 p.m.

Source document: Solicitation #M-OAA-GRO-LMA-12-1002

FOR ADDITIONAL REPORTING ON THE U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, SEE THE MONITOR'S USAID PAGE.

FOR FURTHER REGIONAL COVERAGE, SEE THE MONITOR'S EUROPE PAGE.

OTHER NATION-SPECIFIC MONITOR PAGES ARE EMBEDDED WITHIN THE ABOVE ARTICLE.

"The Whistleblower" (movie trailer)

 

Though a fictional account,The Whistleblower appears to be critically relevant to some of the global contracting issues that U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor attempts to address; hence, I offer this movie trailer for consideration by my readers. Likewise, Foreign Affairs magazine offers an excellent backgrounder on the film, which opens in theaters today. The opening line in that review says it all:

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon traveled to Hollywood last year to cajole filmmakers and movie stars into making pictures that portray the U.N.'s good works. The Whistleblower, a scathing full-length account of the U.N. peacekeeping effort in Bosnia during the late 1990s, is not what he had in mind.