The U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID/EGYPT, Directorate of Procurement (D/PROC), Unit 64902, APO AE 09839-4902

R -- TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE REQUIRED UNDER THE AGRICULTURE POLICY REFORM PROJECT (APRP) SOL RFP No. 263-95-P-072 POC Contact Point: Mr. Leonel Pizarro, Contracting Officer, USAID/Egypt, Tel. No. 011-20-2-357-3257/8, Telefax No. 011-20-2-356-2932 The United States Agency for International Development (USAID/Egypt) seeks proposals from interested U.S. consulting firms/joint ventures, U.S universities (alone or as consortia) or a combination of the two to provide technical assistance in the development, management and measurement of a program designed to assist with the removal of remaining policy barriers to greater participation of private enterprise in Egyptian agriculture and the creation of a liberal, competitive marketing system. The Agricultural Policy Reform Program (APRP) is a $200 million sector grant program supported by a project which will finance mainly long- and short-term technical assistance and studies over a period of five years scheduled to begin in FY 1996. APRP will contribute to the larger objective of increasing production, productivity and income in the agricultural sector. It is anticipated that dollar disbursements of up to $50 million per year will be made over the life of the program in recognition of performance by the Government of Egypt in carrying out policy reforms and related actions mutually agreed to by the GOE and USAID. The policy reform program will represent a broadening and deepening of the reform program begun under the predecessor Agricultural Production and Credit Project. The APRP will focus on the following four objectives: (1) improving the price and marketing systems for agriculture and related sectors; (2) stimulating increased private investment and accelerating privatization of public enterprises providing inputs to agriculture and marketing or processing agricultural outputs; (3) enhancing food security of the needy in a carefully targeted, efficient manner; and (4) improving the efficiency and sustainability of public sector investments in land and water. The lead implementing agency for APRP will be the Ministry of Agriculture, in collaboration with other GOE ministries and the private sector. The program's implementing arm will be a Program Planning Committee (PPC), which wil oversee all activities associated with the program. The PPC will be served by a Program Management Unit (PMU), which will perform operational, administrative and financial tasks in support of APRP. Three projectized technical assistance activities are envisioned in addition to the PMU: (a) monitoring, verification and evaluation of policy reforms; (b) assistance in design and implementation of reforms; and (c) medium- to long-term research on food security problems. The contractor will be required to provide long and short-term expertise to a Monitoring, Verification and Evaluation Unit (MVE Unity), in agricultural policy analysis and marketing/agribusiness. There will be no academic training and very limited procurement of material and equipment. The contract will be awarded initially for 2 years with an option for additional yet-to-be-determined period(s) of time. Services shall be provided via Direct USAID contract. Funds for this procurement are not currently available, however, they are anticipated to be available shortly. Since funds are not currently approved, offerors are under no obligation to submit any proposal in response to this advertisement. The choice to submit technical and cost proposals, shall be at the offeror's own risk. Issuance of this solicitation does not constitute an award commitment on the part of the Government nor does it commit the Government to pay for costs incurred in the preparation or submission of a proposal. Interested offerors must request a copy of the RFP in writing from Leonel Pizarro, Contracting Officer, USAID/Cairo, Unit 64902, APO, AE 09839-4902 or at USAID/Cairo, Directorate of Procurement, 106 Kasr El Aini Street, Cairo Center Bldg., 6th Floor, Cairo, Egypt. Telefax requests to 011-20-2-356-2932 will be accepted. Telephone requests will not be considered. The RFP is expected to be released towards early November 1995. The deadline for submission of proposals is anticipated to be 45 days after issuance of the RFP. Would be offerors are requested not to contact the Cairo mission to provide preliminary information about this solicitation. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) encourages the participation to the maximum extent possible of small business concerns, small disadvantaged business concerns and women-owned small business concerns in this activity as prime contractors or subcontractors in accordance with Pat 19 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation. In this respect, it is anticipated that the prime contractor will make every reasonable effort to identify and make maximum practicable use of such concerns. All other evaluation criteria being found equal, the participation of such concerns may become a determining factor for selection. ''This CBD notice can be viewed and downloaded using the Agency Gopher. The RFP, once issued, can be downloaded from the Agency Gopher. The Gopher address is GOPHER.INFO.USAID.GOV. Select USAID Procurement and Business Opportunities from the Gopher menu. The RFP text can be downloaded via Anonymous File Transfer Protocol (FTP). The FTP address is FTP.INFO.USAID.GOV. Logon on using the user identification of ''anonymous'' and the password is your e-mail address. Look under the following directory for the RFP: pub/OP/RFP/26395P072/26395p072.rfp. Receipt of this RFP through INTERNET must be confirmed by written notification to the contact person noted above. It is the responsibility of the recipient of this solicitation document to ensure that it has been received from the INTERNET in its entirety and USAID bears no responsibility for data errors resulting from transmission or conversion processes.'' (0271)

Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0043 19950929\R-0002.SOL)