USAID/DRC Office of Economic Growth: Enhancing Conflict-Free Supply Chains and Resilience of Mining Communities in Eastern DRC

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is issuing this Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) to seek participants to co-create, co-design, co-invest, and collaborate on research and development (R&D) interventions to address the continued link between minerals and the funding of armed groups, which facilitates insecurity and instability in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). USAID invites organizations and companies to submit an Expression of Interest, as provided in Section III below. USAID and stakeholders, through the co-creation process, will strive to design a program that will use innovative, private-sector led, scalable, transparent, and sustainable approaches or models that facilitate increased exports of conflict-free minerals, particularly gold; and refine and accelerate the adoption of approaches and models in gold mine sites that strengthen artisanal and small-scale (ASM) miners/ASM communities’ resilience to conflict through enhanced economic activity.

The intent of the BAA is to allow co-creation and co-design to the maximum extent to create high-quality, effective partnerships with great efficiency in time and resources. USAID will invite selected public, private, for-profit, and nonprofit organizations, as well as institutions of higher education, public international organizations, non-governmental organizations, U.S. and non-U.S. governmental organizations, multilateral and international donor organizations, as detailed below, to co-create R&D solutions to the Problem and Challenge Statements stated in this BAA in Section II below.

Co-Investing: The purpose of this BAA is to align USAID goals with a range of partners to facilitate shared responsibility, shared risk, and shared resourcing. Shared resourcing requires that cash and other resources, both tangible and intangible, such as in-kind contributions, expertise, intellectual property, brand value, high-value coordination, and access to key people, places, and information, are directed towards reaching the solution to the Problem/Challenge. Co-investing does not require equal shared resources (such as 1:1 leverage), but rather resource contributions that are appropriate to the specific project’s objectives, considering the comparative advantages brought by the participation of each party.

See attached documents (USAID_DRC_BAA-RMT 12.26.2017 and Annex 1_US mineral strategy) for instructions on submission of Expressions of Interest.