Organized Network of Services for Everyone's (ONSE) Health

Document Type: Request for Information (RFI) Number: RFI-612-15-00003 Issuance Date: August 14, 2015 Closing Date: September 13, 2015 Closing Time: 11:59 PM US Eastern Time Activity Title: Organized Network of Services for Everyone's (ONSE) Health--referred to as ONSE Athanzi This USAID/Malawi Request for Information (RFI) is issued for the purpose of providing industry and stakeholders an opportunity to review, comment, suggest, and enhance areas in the attached draft scope of work (SOW) for the USAID/Malawi activity titled: Organized Network of Services for Everyone's (ONSE) Health--referred to as ONSE Athanzi - which translates as - All Healthy. In the Statement of Work, ONSE Athanzi will be referred to as - the Activity. The USAID/ONSE Athanzi is a three plus two optional years activity with an estimated budget of $65-110 million (MNCH38%; FP 33%; Malaria 13% WASH 15%). The purpose of the Activity is to support Government of Malawi (GoM) efforts to improve the health of Malawians through improved access to priority health services; improved quality of priority health services; strengthened district health systems; and increased community demand for priority services. ONSE Athanzi is critical to achievement of USAID/Malawi's Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) and its Development Objective 1 (DO 1): Social development improved, and the Integrated Health Project's (IHP) objective: Health status of Malawians in targeted districts improved. The Activity shall be USAID's primary mechanism for engagement in Malawi's health sector at the district level, and, will contribute to achieving all USAID Ending Preventable Child and Maternal Death (EPCMD) goals and an increase in the modern contraceptive rate. The resultant award will continue the efforts of the Support for Service Delivery Integration (SSDI) 2011- 2016 activity's SSDI-Services component. By covering district level programs, it also partially continues the efforts of SSDI's two other two components: SSDI-Systems and SSDI-Communications. The Activity will be USAID/Malawi's flagship health mechanism to improve the health status of Malawians, and will operate primarily at the district level and below. The focus of this Activity is to reduce maternal, newborn, and child morbidity and mortality. To accomplish this, the Contractor will be required to execute interventions in health systems strengthening (HSS) and the four core technical areas - reproductive health/family planning (FP/RH), maternal, neonatal, and child health (MNCH), malaria, and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) - that contribute to the achievement of the four inter-related and inter-dependent intermediate results (IRs): IR.1 Access to priority health services increased; IR.2 Quality of priority health services improved; IR.3 Performance of health systems strengthened; IR.4 Demand for priority health services increased. As appropriate, USAID/Malawi will incorporate responses to the RFI into the development of the SOW that may lead to a formal solicitation. The duration of a potential award will be up to five (5) years. The attached draft SOW presents the current draft objectives and key elements of the activity. USAID/Malawi may significantly revise this proposed new activity and planned solicitation resulting from the comments received and further internal discussions. This RFI is issued solely for information and planning purposes and does not constitute a Request for Proposals (RFP). Responses to this RFI shall not be portrayed as proposals and will not be accepted by the U.S. Government (USG) to form a binding agreement. This RFI is not to be construed as a commitment by the USG to issue any solicitation or ultimately award of a contract on the basis of this RFI, or to pay for any information submitted as a result of this request. Responders are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this RFI. If the requirement is released in form of an RFP, it may be synopsized in, but not limited to, fbo.gov and Agency websites. It is the potential responder's responsibility to monitor the above forums for the release of any further information. It should be noted that responding to or providing comment on this RFI will not give any advantage to any organization in any subsequent procurement. USAID/Malawi will not provide answers to any question submitted in response to this request. By issuing the draft for comment, USAID/Malawi aims to consult with the broad community of actors involved with health services. Your comments are requested to help refine the SOW to ensure maximum development impact, sound coordination with existing activities, and alignment with the Government of Malawi's top priorities. Please ensure your comments are concise and specific to information included within the draft SOW. While there are no limits on the length of submissions accepted, we value concise, issue-specific responses with reference to page and section numbers in the draft scope of work. Areas of particular interest include: 1. This is a comprehensive health services, quality improvement for health services, HSS, and community mobilization project with a multitude of outcomes. Does the logic behind the development hypothesis and results framework make sense? Do you have any suggestions on how the results framework could be improved? 2. The scope of work for the project encompasses four components: Health Service Delivery; Quality Improvement of Health Services; Health Systems Strengthening (HSS); and Community Mobilization at the district level. Is the expected integrated management approach that will include all four components under one umbrella instrument feasible and balanced? What are the obstacles that would impede potential Offeror from creating a management structure to address all four components? 3. The contractor will be held accountable for exercising leadership in advancing USAID's programmatic integration agenda -- not only within the health sector, but across other USAID-supported sectors (Agriculture, Education, Environment, and Governance) as well. Are USAID's expectations in this regard clear? What types of indicators or benchmarks would be useful in holding the Activity accountable for this aspect of the SoW? 4. Is what we are asking regarding the Activity's efforts to engage and help develop private sector service delivery reasonable? Given the state of Malawi's private sector and the numerous constraints to its development, how ambitious should our expectations be regarding the potential for significant contributions from the private sector to the achievement of the Activity's outcomes? 5. Balancing specificity and flexibility in the achievement of Activity results: Does the SoW as written provide sufficient specificity regarding the results USAID expects of the Activity while providing Offeror with sufficient flexibility to determine the best, most cost-effective approach for achieving them? 6. Key Personnel: Has USAID identified the correct key personnel for this activity given its scope? Please address your comments and questions to Craig Riegler and send them to Gideon Suya at gsuya@usaid.gov with a copy to Adel Yamak at ayamak@usaid.gov no later than the closing date shown above.