Deadline- Aug 30, 2012
Countries/Region- Afghanistan
The Public Affairs Section (PAS) of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan issued a Request for Proposals for cooperative agreement to manage an Education Advising Center in Kabul, Afghanistan from September 30, 2012 to September 29, 2015.
This grant is intended for an Afghan Non Governmental Organization (NGO) or private Higher Education Institution to establish an educational advising center to provide advising and training to students who wish to pursue further study opportunities in the United States. The center will be managed jointly by the grantee and the Embassy’s Education USA Adviser. In addition to educational advising and test preparation courses, the recipient of this grant will provide testing services and provide a venue to Embassy Education USA advising activities. These activities will supplement the activities undertaken by the Kabul Education USA Advising Center located at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
Proposals should address three distinct activities–
- Educational advising services
- Standardized Testing Services such as preparation for and test administration of TOEFL, GRE, GMAT etc
- Relationship with US Embassy Public Affairs Exchange staff and Higher Education Institutions in Kabul to increase access to educational advising services and to develop candidates for exchanges
The award Recipient shall provide the following overall support–
- Operational and program management for the Education Advising and Testing Center in central location of Kabul city that is accessible to students and professional population.
- On-going, regular communication with US Embassy Public Affairs Exchange staff and co-management with Education USA Adviser to facilitate events in support of exchange programs and provide a full range of advising services.
- Submission of itemized quarterly reports to the U.S. Embassy on program activities and budgets for each ELC.
- Submission of itemized quarterly financial reports and an end-of-year full report.
The U.S. Embassy Public Affairs Section (PAS) shall provide the following support-
- In cooperation with Recipient, coordinate advising, recruitment, training, and test preparation.
- Implement Education USA advising services within the Education Advising and Testing Center
- Assign a Project Coordinator for the management of the Education Advising and Testing Center to closely work with the Recipient as a co-manager. The salary for this person should be included in the proposal budget.
- Review quarterly budget expenditures and narrative progress reports.
Award Amount-The award ceiling is set at $1,000,000.
The proposal must consist of the following-
- Application for Federal Assistance (SF-424)
- Abstract- The abstract is limited to 300 words in length. It must provide a summary of the project to be undertaken, expected timeline, and cost.
- Implementation Plan-The applicant must specify the goals and objectives of the project. The steps involved — from design to procurement to training — should be described in sufficient detail to show how objectives and goals will be met. This section should also describe how success will be measured via performance indicators. This section must include a time-task plan that clearly identifies the objectives and major activities.
- Organizational Capability-Applications must include a clear description of the applicant’s management structure, previous experience with higher level education in Afghanistan, project management, and/or Education Advising Centers in Afghanistan, experience working with Afghan government institutions, and the organizational experience and background in Afghanistan related to the proposed activities.
criteria–
- serve as a standard against which all proposals will be evaluated
- serve to identify the significant matters that should be addressed in all proposals. The USG will award grants to the applicants whose offers represent the best value to the USG on the basis of technical merit and cost.
- Applicants must submit a full project description in accordance with the following instructions and the specified evaluation criteria. The instructions give a broad overview of what the project description should include while the evaluation criteria provide details of more program-specific information that is needed.
Eligibility-
- Eligibility is open to registered Afghan NGOs or private Institutes of Higher Education in Kabul, Afghanistan with prior experience in project management and/or Education Advising Services.
- Applicants are not required to include funding from other donors. However, applications that include additional in-kind and/or cash contributions from non-U.S. Government sources will be more competitive, since cost-sharing demonstrates a strong commitment to the planned activities and will be considered to show greater cost effectiveness. Cost-sharing of 10% must be in place by year two of the cooperative agreement.
For more information, visit grants.gov and search by funding opportunity number. SCAKAB-12-AW-018-SCA-0801012
