Sustainable Peri-urban Water and Sanitation services | BAA DRC WASH 2018

Opportunity Information: Apply for BAA DRC WASH 2018

The Sustainable Peri-urban Water and Sanitation Services opportunity is a USAID Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) issued by USAID/Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Its focus is on improving water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services in peri-urban areas, where rapid growth and weak infrastructure often make service delivery unreliable, expensive, or difficult to sustain. Rather than funding a pre-defined project, this BAA is designed to bring in partners to jointly shape the work from the beginning through a structured co-creation and co-design process.

At the center of the announcement is a call for research and development (R and D) interventions that tackle the most serious constraints and bottlenecks preventing sustainable and resilient WASH services in peri-urban settings. USAID is looking for practical, solution-oriented ideas that can be tested, improved through learning, and then scaled. The emphasis is on approaches that fit local realities, work with markets instead of against them, and can continue functioning after external support decreases. This includes building an enabling environment for WASH services and strengthening the capacity of local governments, communities, and civil society to plan, manage, and sustain service delivery.

A key feature of the BAA is its partnership model. USAID intends to invite selected organizations to collaborate on developing solutions to specific problem and challenge statements referenced in the announcement. Eligible participants are broadly defined as “unrestricted,” meaning a wide range of entities can express interest. This includes public and private organizations, for-profit companies, nonprofits, universities, public international organizations, NGOs, U.S. and non-U.S. government bodies, and multilateral or international donor organizations. The goal is to form high-quality partnerships efficiently, saving time and resources by designing interventions collaboratively rather than requiring applicants to submit fully developed proposals without stakeholder input.

Co-investment is another defining element. USAID is explicitly seeking shared responsibility, shared risk, and shared resourcing with partners. This does not mean partners must match USAID funding dollar-for-dollar. Instead, contributions should make sense for the project and reflect each partner’s comparative advantage. Resources can include cash, in-kind support, technical expertise, intellectual property, brand value, coordination capacity, and access to key networks, locations, data, or decision-makers. This structure is meant to increase buy-in, attract private investment, and improve the chances that successful WASH solutions can be sustained and expanded.

From an application standpoint, the BAA begins with an Expression of Interest (EOI), which is the initial entry point for organizations that want to participate in co-creation. The funding opportunity is categorized as discretionary, with the funding instrument listed as “Other,” and the activity category is labeled as Health under CFDA 98.001. The listing shows an original closing date of October 29, 2018, and does not specify an award ceiling or the expected number of awards in the provided data, which suggests the final scope and funding levels may have been intended to be shaped during the co-design process rather than set upfront.

Overall, this opportunity is best understood as a collaborative innovation platform for peri-urban WASH in the DRC. USAID’s intent is to assemble a mix of partners who can jointly design and test scalable, locally appropriate solutions that strengthen systems, unlock investment, and improve long-term service delivery in fast-changing peri-urban environments.

• The Democratic Republic of the Congo USAID-Kinshasa in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Sustainable Peri-urban Water and Sanitation services" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 98.001.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2018-08-28.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2018-10-29. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted.

Apply for BAA DRC WASH 2018

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