U.S. Agency for International Development, M/OP/B/HNE, Room 1509, SA-14, Washington, D.C. 20523-1424

B -- GIRLS' AND WOMEN'S EDUCATION ACTIVITY SOL M/OP/B/HNE-96-004 POC Contact: Benjamin C. Vogler (703) 875-1180; Contracting Officer: (703) James A. Jeckell (703) 875-1180 B--The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) contemplates issuing a request for proposals (RFP) for a five year contract for professional services to implement a program to 1) enable selected host-country governments and private-sector and non-governmental entities to formulate, implement, and sustain country initiatives for girls' education to ensure substantially increased educational opportunities for girls at the primary school level, and to 2) conduct analytic studies of existing early childhood development and women's integrated literacy pilot programs in selected countries to determine the effects of the programs on the countries' social and economic development (e.g., fertility, family health and nutrition, productivity, education). USAID will conduct a pre-solicitation conference for this activity at the following address: The Arlington Temple United Methodist Church; 1835 N. Nash Street; Rosslyn, Virginia 22209. The pre-solicitation conference will take place on 02/12/1995, from 9:00a.m. to 12:00n. All interested offerors are encouraged to attend the conference. Interested parties are requested to notify this office in advance by letter of their intention to attend the conference. Copies of the proposed statement of work, evaluation criteria, types of contract, etc., will be mailed to potential attendees and will be made available at the conference. The Agency actively is seeking comments on the proposed procurement. The RFP will be issued no less than 30 days after the pre-solicitation conference and will be subject to full and open competition. No additional synopsis will be made of this requirement. If you wish a copy of the resultant RFP, please request it now. All responsible sources may submit a proposal which shall be considered by the Agency. No less than 10 percent of the total value of the contract will have to be subcontracted to Gray Amendment entities (U.S. socially and economically disadvantaged, including women-owned businesses; historically black colleges and universities with at least 40 percent Hispanic American students; and U.S. private voluntary organizations controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals, including women). To help identify potential subcontractors, a list of all organizations requesting a copy of the solicitation will be sent with each solicitation document. Organizations are encouraged to indicate whether they are Gray Amendment entities when requesting the solicitation and may indicate that they do not wish to be included on the list. By providing the list, USAID does not endorse the listed organizations as being capable of carrying out the activity, nor does USAID verify the claimed status of the organizations. Necessarily, the list will contain the names of only those organizations known prior to the issuance of the solicitation document. Proposals shall include plans reflecting no less than 10 percent subcontracting with the above-defined entities. Proposals not including such plans will be considered to be non-responsive. In addition to the above requirement, in accordance with FAR 52.219, a small business/small disadvantaged business subcontracting plan must be submitted unless the offeror is a small business or small disadvantaged business. All other selection criteria being found equal, the participation of such additional small business subcontracting may become a determining factor for selection. The preferred method of distribution of USAID procurement information is via the Internet or by request of a solicitation on a 3.5'' floppy disk (WordPerfect 5.1/5.2 format). This CBD notice and the RFP text, when released, can be viewed and downloaded via the Agency Gopher. The Gopher address is GOPHER.INFO.USAID.GOV. Select USAID PROCUREMENT AND BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES from the GOPHER menu. From there, choose the heading USAID PROCUREMENTS and then DOWNLOAD AVAILABLE USAID SOLICITATIONS. The RFP, when released, can also be downloaded via Anonymous File Transfer Protocol (FTP). The FTP address is FTP.INFO.USAID.GOV. Logon on using the user identification of ''anonymous'' and the password is your E-mail address. Look under the following director for the RFP when it is released: pub/OP/RFP/96HNE004/96hne004.rfp. Receipt of this RFP through INTERNET must be confirmed by written notification to the contact person noted above. It is the responsibility of the recipient of this solicitation document to ensure that it has been received from INTERNET in its entirety and USAID bears no responsibility for data errors resulting from transmission or conversion processes. (0023)

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