U.S. Agency for International Development, M/OP/B/LA, Room 1545, SA- 14, Washington, D.C. 20523-1430

B -- BRODENING ACCESS AND STRENGTHENING IMPUT MARKET SYSTEM, (BASIC) COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH SUPPORT PROGRAMS (CRSP) SOL M/OP/A/LA-96-001 POC Margaret Kline, (703) 875-1133, Contracting Officer, Ronald Stanley, (703) 875-1038. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) contemplates issuing on or about March 22, 1996, a Request for Application (RFA) for a five-year, $10 million dollar cooperative agreement (Collaborative Research Support Program, CRSP) to a Title XII University to develop, disseminate and promote the means to improve rural households' access to land, labor and financial markets in developing countries. The University must serve as the Management Entity (ME) with a global plan for the Broadening Access and Strengthening Input Markets (BASIS) CRSP and maintain overall program oversight including the management of research subprojects (or subagreements) which will be conducted by the ME's institution and by other collaborating or participating U.S. and developing country institutions. USAID contemplates making one award from the application based on full and open competition. All responsible sources may submit a proposal which shall be considered by the Agency. Interested offerors may request a copy of RFA M/OP/BLA6001 by submitting a written request along with three self-addressed self-stick mailing labels for the offer's firm. Please do not send stamped envelopes. Walk-in and telephone requests will not be honored. The preferred method of distribution of USAID procurement information is via the Internet or by request of a solicitation on a 3.5'' floppy disk (WordPerfect 5.1/5.2 format). This CBD notice can be viewed and downloaded using the Agency Gopher. The RFA, 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. From there, choose the heading USAID PROCUREMENTS and then DOWNLOAD AVAILABLE USAID SOLICITATIONS. The RFA can also 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 RFA: pub/OP/RFA/BLA6001/ bla6001.rfa. Receipt of this RFA 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 INTERNET in its entirety and USAID bears no responsibility for data errors resulting from transmission or conversion processes. (0078)

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