Addressing Child Labor and Forced Labor in Coffee Supply Chains

NOTE: This is a Notice of Intent. An announcement is not related to this notice. We are not accepting applications at this time. Subject to the availability of funds, USDOL’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) intends to award, through a competitive process, one or more cooperative agreements to organizations to improve implementation of social compliance systems that promote acceptable conditions of work and the elimination of child labor and forced labor in coffee supply chains. Each cooperative agreement will fund a project in one of the following countries in the Latin America/Caribbean region, where USDOL’s List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor (TVPRA List) documents child labor and/or forced labor concerns: Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, or Nicaragua. Project outcomes include: 1) Adoption of a robust and sustainable social compliance system by private sector stakeholders in coffee supply chains; 2) Strengthened capacity of private sector stakeholders to implement a robust and sustainable social compliance system in coffee supply chains; and 3) New social compliance tools on child labor, forced labor, and acceptable conditions of work piloted in the coffee supply chain. Applicants may apply for one or two of the cooperative agreements listed above. If applying for two cooperative agreements, applicants should not combine countries in a single application, but must submit separate applications for each country. Each application should request no more than $2 million in funding. In the event that the same applicant is selected for award in two countries, USDOL may elect to negotiate with that applicant to possibly issue one cooperative agreement covering more than one country. The Employment and Training Administration (ETA)’s Office of Grants Management anticipates publishing the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) before September 30, 2017 (subject to change). Please refer to: http://www.dol.gov/ilab/grants/ and http://www.dol.gov/ilab/grants/SGAguidelines.htm for general guidelines and examples of previous cooperative agreement applications. This notice does not include an FOA or any attachments. It only constitutes a notice of USDOL’s intent to publish an FOA at a later date. Interested applicants are encouraged to monitor www.grants.gov for the FOA because, if an FOA is published, grants.gov is the method by which the FOA will be made available to the public. No email or paper copies of any FOA will be provided.