USAID Announces New Broad Agency Announcement to Address Air Pollution

A motorcyclist rides through a polluted road in Lalitpur, Nepal. Photo: Skanda Gautam CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
A motorcyclist rides through a polluted road in Lalitpur, Nepal. Photo: Skanda Gautam CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

USAID is issuing a new Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) to support innovative approaches and solutions to prevent and mitigate pollution around the world. This is the first time USAID has issued a BAA on pollution. The BAA process is unique in that it promotes design to solution, not design to instrument or budget. On February 10, USAID issued the first funding opportunity under this BAA entitled New Approaches for Addressing Air Pollution Addendum. Air pollution is the leading environmental risk to public health. Urgent action is needed to protect human health, ecosystems, and economies. Environmental protection is foundational for countries to achieve self-reliance.

Key Documents

New Approaches for Addressing Air Pollution

Frequently Asked Questions & Answers

Objective

Harness the power of science, technology, innovation, and partnership to reduce air pollution around the world. 

USAID seeks to collaborate with a diversity of stakeholders to advance knowledge and practice on effective air pollution solutions. USAID is looking for innovative solutions to maximize multiple development benefits from air pollution interventions, such as human health improvements, enhancing ecosystem services, economic benefits, and climate change mitigation. Solutions must include basic research, applied research, and/or research and development components.

Five Focus Areas

USAID has selected five focus areas to guide the development of EOIs. Organizations may submit more than one EOI, but each EOI should clearly address only one of the five areas.

  1. Data, Modeling and Analysis to Improve Management Capacity and Public Advocacy
  2. Governance Reforms
  3. Implementation of Key Technologies and Actions to Reduce Both the Amount and Impact of Air Pollution
  4. Fostering Public and Private Sector Engagement
  5. Enhancing USAID Capacity and Engagement

Expression of Interest Submission Guidelines 

  • Be in English
  • Describe your idea/approach and the extent to which the idea/approach involves components of ‘basic research’, ‘applied research’, and/or ‘research and development’, as defined by this solicitation;
  • Be no more than two (2) pages in length – and no smaller than Times New Roman 11 point font;
  • Be submitted electronically to airpollution@usaid.gov with the subject “Air Pollution BAA EOI – [name of organization]” by 11:59pm EDT on March 9, 2020.
  • Contain a header with the following information (included in the page count):
    1. Respondent Name/Group
    2. Contact Information
    3. EOI Title
    4. BAA Addendum Name/Number
    5. Addendum Focus Area
  • Be in .pdf or .docx format;
  • Include a footer with page numbers;
  • References and citations are not required but are encouraged. If included, references and citations should be formatted as endnotes, and will not be included in the page limit.

Who can submit EOIs?

U.S. and non-U.S. organizations who work in USAID partner countries can submit an EOI — including the private sector, public sector, non-governmental, for-profit, non-profit, and educational institutions — whether you are new to USAID, or a long-standing partner. USAID in particular encourages organizations to consider collaborating with other organizations to form non-traditional partnerships, and to utilize diverse expertise to advance cross-cutting solutions.

Co-Creation Workshop

Unique opportunity to collaborate with a range of experts and organizations from different sectors working on state-of-the-art air pollution solutions. 

For EOIs that are deemed to have merit by USAID and pass criteria/eligibility stated within the BAA, USAID will issue an invitation to participate in a co-creation workshop. Co-creation workshops encourage participants to challenge assumptions about development interventions and to think creatively about solutions to accelerate outcomes.  We will be looking for participants to collaborate at and after the workshop in the design of concept papers for basic research, applied research, and/or research and development for USAID’s review. USAID will discuss potential funding levels at the co-creation workshop. Any travel costs associated with the co-creation workshop will be borne by the invited groups, and they will not be reimbursed by USAID. There is no guarantee that participation in the BAA co-creation workshop will lead to an award from USAID.

Important Links – Official Announcement

Grants.gov: https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=324244 

FBO.gov: https://beta.sam.gov/opp/8cc53f441e0945e0b517aa56c0819c94/view