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

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.

$250 Million Contract-Ceiling Set for Global Small-Arms Destruction

As much as a quarter-billion dollars in contracts could be awarded over the next five years to provide worldwide “conventional weapons destruction” (CWD) services on behalf of the U.S. State Department.

In a document released today (May 9) titled “Questions and Answers for the [CWD] Solicitation, the department confirmed that the maximum ceiling for the five-year program indeed was set at $250 million. Since State earlier had designated the endeavor as a “100% small-business set aside,” a perplexed but unidentified contractor had submitted the question, “This seems to be a very big contract for a Small Business. Is this ceiling correct?” State responded in the affirmative, while pointing out, however, that “annual spending on the current contract has ranged from $30 million-$40 million per year.”

A previous, $160 million award had gone to contracting behemoth DynCorp International. In December 2010 DynCorp had received an $8 million sole-source contract-extension to continue destroying weapons and stockpiles in Laos, Montenegro, and Albania that State claimed may “otherwise fall into use by terrorists, criminals, or similar organizations,” according to a Justification for Approval of Other Than Full and Open Competition (J&A) document. 

Separately, late last year RONCO Consulting Corporation received a $3 million extension to a previously awarded $185 million contract to perform CWD services in Iraq and Peru. Similarly, State awarded to ArmorGroup North America a $3 million extension to a previously awarded $78 million contract to perform CWD services in the same nations where DynCorp was conducting such operations: Laos, Montenegro, and Albania.

It should be noted that ArmorGroup lost an even larger contract to provide security services to the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, after the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight helped expose lewd and irresponsible behavior by contractor personnel.

The latest contracting action—which would open up the DynCorp, RONCO, and ArmorGroup projects to competitive bidding—has extended the due date for proposals to May 18.