USAID/Colombia Public Policy Program TEC Increase

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) intends to award an new work modification to Contract No. AID-514-C-11-00001 with AECOM International Development, Inc., pursuant to AIDAR 706.302-70, Impairment of foreign aid programs. (a) Authority. (1) Citation: 40 U.S.C. 474. (2), from $22.487,555.00 to approximately $27.387,555.00. This is a five-year Contract awarded on October 21, 2010, on a full and open competition basis through Request for Proposals (RFP) No. SOL-514-09-000004 dated November 5, 2009. The Public Policy Program’s main goal is to provide specialized technical assistance services to the Government of Colombia (GOC) to develop land strategies and policies; strengthen its capacity to design, adopt, and implement policies that improve the delivery of public services to impoverished and vulnerable groups affected by the country’s internal conflict; articulate policies and programs to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of service delivery at the municipal level; and develop environmental policy and legislation. Specifically the new work modification to USAID/Colombia’s Public Policy Program will allow the contractor to: a) Increase the level of technical assistance provided to the Colombian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in the development of land strategies, policies and legal reforms to achieve three long-term objectives of the Government of Colombia b) Formalize and protect the property of families with small landholdings; ii) return of property to victims of land seizure by illegally armed groups; and, iii) provision of access to prime arable land through more efficient land markets and design subsidies for poor landless farmers and conflict-affected population c) Increase the level of technical assistance to the GOC to continue to support the design of key institutions for the implementation of the Victims’ Law, such as the Unit for Attention and Reparations for Victims and its regional attention centers. The Program will continue to support the creation and strengthening of key national institutions in support of the GOC strategy and development of key policy frameworks and their programmatic design at the national level. This action will give the current Contractor sufficient resources to fully perform additional relevant work without delaying the Program. An award to another resource would result in substantial additional costs to USAID and would result in unacceptable delays. Based on the foregoing, competition of this effort is not a reasonable option. Interested organizations may submit their capabilities and qualifications to perform the effort in writing to the identified point of contact not later than 15 days after the date of publication of this notice. Such capabilities/qualifications will be evaluated solely for the purpose of determining whether or not to conduct this procurement on a competitive basis. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed effort on a full and open competition basis, based upon responses to this notice, is solely within the discretion of the government. Oral communications are not acceptable in response to this notice. All responsible sources may submit an offer which shall be considered by the agency.