U.S. Support to the OSCE in Europe

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION Department of State U.S. Support to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) December 20, 2021 Introduction This Request for Information (RFI) notice is issued as a part of market research being conducted by the Department of State (DoS) Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs (EUR) in support of a potential acquisition under which the U.S. Government may engage contractor support to its efforts to provide support personnel in response to ongoing and emergent needs of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Two separate types of personnel support are under consideration for potential inclusion under an acquisition contract as follows: Paid staff positions to be filled for terms that generally last for 12 months or more as - seconded U.S. citizens within the OSCE's various duty stations, such as the OSCE Secretariat (located in Vienna, Austria), three independent Institutions (located in Warsaw, Poland, The Hague, Netherlands, and Vienna, Austria), and various field operations; and Volunteer U.S. citizen election observers who serve for several days up to several weeks in select countries in support of election observation missions led by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), one of the OSCE's independent Institutions. This RFI notice consists of this request document with its enclosed response format and four (4) Appendices as follows: Appendix A - Draft US-OSCE RFP Sections B through J Appendix B - Draft US-OSCE RFP Attachment B-1, - LCAT Detailed Descriptions and Qualification Requirements Appendix C - Draft US-OSCE EXAMPLE RFP Attachment B-2, - Incumbent OSCE Seconded Support Personnel Appendix D - Draft US-OSCE RFP Attachment C-1, - SOW CLIN-Specific Detailed Requirements This RFI notice is issued solely for information and planning purposes and does not constitute a Request for Quote/Proposal (RFQ/P) or a promise to issue a solicitation in the future. This RFI does not commit the government to contract for any supply or service whatsoever. Further, the DoS is not at this time seeking proposals and will not accept unsolicited proposals. Respondents are advised that the U.S. government will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in response to this RFI; all costs associated with responding to this RFI will be solely at the interested party's expense. Not responding to this RFI does not preclude participation in any future RFQ/P, if any is issued. 2. Background The Department of State (DoS) is the United States Government's agency that leads America's foreign policy to advance the interests and security of the American people. It is contemplating using the services of a contractor to assist in meeting its commitments to recruit, deploy overseas, and manage the support and performance of U.S. Citizens who generally possess highly skilled, knowledgeable professional backgrounds in a wide range of fields of expertise. These individuals will be serving the advancement of U.S. policy initiatives and objectives, while remaining within all applicable legal constraints. Contracting out such recruitment and management activities is not a new initiative for DoS, although some significant revisions and innovations in the approach are being contemplated. Industry input is being sought to help shape the acquisition to maximize competitive participation, innovation, effectiveness and efficiency. The 4 Appendices included in this RFI document have been developed to provide additional background of the potential need and the DoS acquisition approach. They have been formatted as if they would constitute initial drafts of the most pertinent documents defining a solicitation of offers. Potentially interested members of industry are requested to review and provide comments in response to this RFI. 3. Responding to this RFI Industry respondents with potential interest in performing services as defined in Appendices A-D are requested to respond to this RFI by completing the table-format responses via the Appendix 1 - Part I -Vendor information and Past Experience questions with information about your firm as well as up to 3 recent experiences. The completed Attachment 1 form shall not be more than 5 pages in length. In addition, respondents are requested to include a separate document that provides comments and answers to the questions identified in Part II - Additional Information. Part II responses shall not exceed 10 pages in length and use 12 point, Times New Roman font with 1-inch page margins. ================= Part I - Vendor Information and Past Experience Name of Company Point of contact name, telephone number and email address. What contract vehicle(s) would you recommend for this requirement? Business type: Small Business Small Disadvantaged Business 8(a)-certified Small Disadvantaged Business HUBZone SDVOSB WOSB/EDWOSB Other than small business Provide a brief description of up to three (3) past experiences performed in the past five (5) years that demonstrates your company's capabilities to perform the requirements of the types described in Appendices A-D of this document. For each experience that demonstrates your capabilities, cite the name and contact information for the ultimate system user organization and describe the size and scope in terms of numbers and geographic dispersion of users, data throughput, installed system scalability, and whether or not the system is on-premises, cloud based, or federal cloud based to illustrate the size and scope of the ultimate customer system needs. Past experience can include prime and subcontractor experience. For experiences at the subcontractor level, please specify your firm's role and scope within the overall effort. Please complete your response to Part I of this RFI using the form(s) included in Attachment 1 to this document. ================= Part II - Additional Information Given your own experiences, such as those discussed in Part I, what is your opinion of the hybrid contract type as shown in Appendix A, i.e., Program Management efforts, including both Transition-in and eventual Demobilization are FFP-type CLIN requirements, while the CLINs for overseas performance efforts of the support personnel are T&M type CLINs. Are there specific parts of the potential requirement as described in the Appendices that you find unclear and that would need additional or clearer definition to enable you to confidently compete for and successfully perform? Are there elements of the potential requirement as described in the Appendices that you clearly understand, but believe they may adversely affect your willingness to submit an offer or will be unduly restrictive or unnecessarily expensive and should be altered to foster effective competition and effective, efficient performance? Are there any specific timeframes specified within Appendices A-D that you believe are unrealistic and might not be achievable in performance? If so, please identify and explain what you believe would be more reasonable. Please provide a ROM estimate for the size and skillset makeup, and the annual cost of an office to manage this program. Reference the requirements for pre-deployment vetting and validating of an individual's qualifications, i.e., a drug test, a medical exam by the candidate's physician, complete background checks, and validation of educational/ employment history relevant to qualifying for the specific OSCE position, as summarized at in Appendix 4, paragraph C.3.1.3.d.v. Based on your experience and knowledge of the professional personnel recruitment and management business, can you identify some of the key distinguishing attributes of the more successful practitioners for accomplishing these activities for efficiency and effectiveness (e.g., approaches or mixtures of in-house vs. purchased services for the respective activities)? If this effort is to be acquired, the Government would plan to conduct a best value trade-off competition. Given your firm's relevant experience and the information about the potential need provided within this RFI, what do you believe the Government should consider as evaluation factors and relevant significance of each factor in selecting the best value solution? What should be the - Basis for Selection, given these recommended factors? What information should the Government seek via offeror proposals in order to evaluate against your recommended factors and select the best value solution to meet the need? The Government is considering including a performance incentive on this contract to provide a financial incentive to encourage superior performance in the area of personnel retention. The current experience has demonstrated that frequent turnover of personnel can degrade mission success and can be disruptive to day-to-day operations. To assist the government in developing the most effective incentive provision please respond to the following questions: Do you believe a financial incentive for superior performance would effectively motivate special attention in your planning, execution and management of this effort? Can you recommend a specific retention related performance metric that would provide a good indication of the quality or effectiveness of a contractor's performance in the area of staff retention. Based on the recommend performance metric, what would be the most appropriate frequency of measuring this metric? Given the recommend performance metric, do you have any recommendation regarding the value the government should associate with such a performance metric; state as a percent of the total annual contract value. Please feel free to ask any other questions you have or provide ideas that could help determine the best approach for acquiring the types of support identified in this RFI. Response Submission Deadline: Please provide your responses to this RFI by January 11, 2022. RFI submissions will be accepted as email attachments only. All responses must be sent to DomingueJ@state.gov, with - US-OSCE Support in the subject line. Copies of your submission must be sent to KrauseA@state.gov, as well as our support contractor who will be assisting in the analysis of responses received at: shieldsp@seventhsenseconsulting.com. The support contractor's personnel are operating under a NDA and the employer would be not eligible to compete, should this potential acquisition be conducted. An email confirmation of receipt from DoS will be sent to each respondent's designated point of contact as identified in Attachment A.