Background & Introduction

DAI, through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), is seeking applications from prospective partners to implement a grant that will create additional value for the agricultural sector. The U.S. Haïti Feed the Future Partnership: Northern Corridor Project (FTF-N) initiative called Appui à la Valorisation du Potentiel Agricole du Nord, pour la Sécurité Economique et environnementale (AVANSE) has been working for the last 4 years to improve agricultural best practices in several value chains (rice, banana/plantain, coffee and cacao) – including improved technologies and practices in agricultural inputs, technologies, post-harvest techniques, storage techniques, and fertilization/pesticide application/disease control. The AVANSE team has identified a weakness in the value chain – which is the proper and safe collection, transport, disposal and/or recycling of agricultural waste – which includes fertilizers, pesticides, and other materials and by-products. Currently there are no standards, service providers, or readily accessible dissemention of information to farmers, wholesalers and retailers that support the safe collection and disposal/recylcing of these unused, expired and/or used waste materials, which may or may not be considered hazardous materials.

It is the goal of AVANSE to ensure that agricultural best practices not only include improving productivity and access to markets by farmers, but also ensuring safe and environmntally responsible practices by farmers, wholesalers, retailers and even importers of agricultural chemicals, inputs, by-products that are consistent with international best practices, technologies and innovations.

As such, DAI seeks a grantee/ a partner, potentially in the private sector, who can co-invest in finding a wholistic and practical solution to the above stated industry gap – and establish solutions that are both impactful and sustainable. AVANSE believes that through this partnership with the private sector, tangible business-value and opportunities will be created.

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Consequently, AVANSE is seeking in-country private sector actors and /or NGOs that are currently or potentially involved in the waste management and/or recycling sector, with previous experience with respect to hazardous wastes disposal, to partner and co-invest with AVANSE to facilitate in the short to medium terms the establishment of much needed standardized harzadous wastes disposal facilities, practices, information, and standards, including working with the relevant local and national authorities to promote and disseminate information about proper agricultural waste disposal. Considering that these waste disposal activities require the active involvement of local authorities for their proper functioning and sustainability, as related to hazardous wastes facility permitting, licensing and ongoing inspections, meaningful mechanisms for facilitating GOH’s fufilment of that regulating role along with increasing of their understanding of the technical and institutional best practices associated with the hazardous wastes management sector also will need to be materialized through this grant program / capacity building activity. Under this expected grant agreement, the collaborative arrangements to be set in motion between the in-country private sector actor to be selected and GOH’s entities of interest will be formalized through agreed upon public private partnership (PPP) agreeements

The specific objectives to be achieved through the grant’s program are as follows:
1. Deepen GOH entities’ understanding of relevant international conventions and treaties as linked to national laws and regulations associated with hazardous wastes management and sanitation – as well as providing them with tailored environmental management trainings and demonstrations** to effectively address issues of permitting/licensing, certifications, and inspections pertaining to the effective functioning of sanitation and wastes handling and disposal facilities. Identify and recommend international best practices that can be converted into GOH standards for disposal of these types of chemicals – for example using US EPA Standards, Standards from World Health Organization (WHO), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), other international best practices or a combinatio thereof; and
2. Establishing - in the medium/long terms – the foundations to facilitate the continuous availability of standardized hazardous wastes handling and disposal services in-country for all private and public entities involved in activities employing the use of manufactured products whose end-of-life cycle unavoidably lead to the production of special/hazardous wastes that need to be properly processed and disposed of.
3. Practical and accessible information provided to farmers, wholesalers, and retailers about the safe transportation, storage, break-packing, labeling, and eventual disposal of hazardous or environmentally sensitive agricultural inputs and waste.
4. Working collaboratively with farmers, retailers and wholesalers to identify and facilitate creative ideas, innovations, or formal and informal market linkages that would make more effective use of un-expired stock of agricultural inputs that eventually expire – for example, working with boutiques and retailers to create smaller volumes of agricultural inputs to reduce the chances of expiration OR creating better inventory prediction tools for needed agricultral inputs, i.e. as a way to avoid the eventuality of expired stock that requires disposal. This aspect of the grant is intended to think proactively rather than reactively about how to tackle this concern, and if possible propose creative ideas to find income generating or cost savings

**In support of Objective #1 above, AVANSE will provide expired pesticides which it purchased in 2014 (roughly 1,000 litres of Roundup (Glyphosate) and 15 kg of Actara (Thimethoxam)) which can be used as demonstration and training materials to show exactly how, once the standards have been agreed to, can be applied and executed in a way that is compliant with the aforementioned adopted international standards and/or industry best practices.

Activies proposed under this grant must describe and demonstrate how they can contribute to one or more of the following AVANSE

Section A – Grant Application Instructions

Application Procedure

1. Eligibility Requirements:

• Registration of Haitian organizations under Haitian Law. Copy of Numéro d’Identité Fiscale (NIF), or Fiscal Identification Number, and patente issued by the Haitian Direction Générale des Impôts (DGI); or relevant certifications and/or registrations appropriate;
• Propose a significant cost-share commitment.

Application Submission Requirements:
1. Evidence of 2 eligibility requirements above
2. Technical Application including a Workplan
3. Proposed Grant Budget
4. Annex 1: Statement of liability (signature at the bottom of Budget Submission)
5. Annex 2: CVs of Key personnel


2. Preparation Instructions – Technical Response

Page Limitation: Technical Responses should be specific, complete, presented concisely and shall not exceed 5 pages (exclusive of annexes).

Application submitted in response to this RFA must include the following information:

1. Project Description: The Grant program / capacity building activity will primarely involve- but is not limited to, facilitating the adoption of international best practices/standards and the commercializiation and/or adoption of private sector sustatinable business opportunities to provide hazardous wastes processing and disposal. The grantee will be expected to provide training and demonstrations directly linked to the practices pertaining to the operations and maintenance (O&M), and occupational and environmental health and safety (EHS) associated with the acquired technologies so to ensure sustainability of the grant program’s equipment investments; Working with GOH’s ministries and agencies with mandates to regulate the [hazardous] wastes management sector so to addressing issues of permitting / licensing, certification and inspections that are needed [from local authorities/ GOH] for the proper functioning and sustainability of the sector; and finally - through PPP agreements to be specified, providing private actors and stakeholders involved in end-of-life hazardous wastes production and management with training in international and national legal requirements associated with the proper handling and disposal of wastes being generated - using the grant program / technical assistance mechanisms as a hands-on pilot case, so to ensure that proper occupational and environmental health and safety safeguards are applied in their operations particularly.

Per the above, the best grantee to be selected to support AVANSE in this undertaking will need to present us with a clear overview of its understanding and vision of the grant/ technical assistance activity through providing us with a detailed description of the approach (es) being proposed to achieve the above objectives and how they will contribute to one or more of the performance indicators listed above. This will primarily include a detailed description of the technical procedures, equipment and logistics, and facilities needed to perform the trainings and demonstrations, obtain expert consultation services (potentially from outside Haiti to help), communicate and dissementate information to farmers, retailers and wholesalers, and to creatively find ways to improve income for farmers.

The grant envisions facilitating the meaningful involvement of GOHs entities of interest per the PPP agreement to be along with the integration of private sector actors and stakeholders of the hazardous wastes production and /or disposal sector also ought to be addressed. Technical and institutional rationals supporting the proposed approaches for implementation will be outlined, as well as the national laws and relevant international regulations frameworks and best practices (US EPA, WHO, FAO, e.g.) supporting this undertaking.
2. Monitoring (Results and Benchmarks): The applicant should define, to the maximum extent possible at the application stage, results and benchmarks for monitoring the performance towards attainment of program objectives.


3. Sustainability: The applicant should describe how the project or its benefits will continue after grant funding ends.

The program is aimed at establishing in-country standardized hazardous wastes management / disposal facilities that can provide the country with the necessary support to process and dispose of end-of-life cycle derived special wastes in general, and hazardous wastes (spoiled pesticides, e.g.) in particular. Therefore, the effective establishment of standardized operational facilities that can properly provide the whole sector– along with the meaningful involvement of GOH’s entities in charge of regulating the hazardous wastes management sector – will constitute the main criteria through which the program’s sustainability will/ should be assessed. As a result, the ideal grantee would be one whose environmental management / wastes management long term sustainable development plan falls within the grant program’s overall objective and vision. This needs to be duly proven by past and/or ongoing sound interventions supporting the bettering of the sector as a whole - through targetted equipment and/or logistics investments made and/or sustainable and concrete initiatives undertaken in-country towards achieving their goals of enhancing the availability of sound hazardous wastes disposal mechanisms in Haiti. The grantee shall also prpose how they will create information linkages to farmers, retailers and wholesalers – either through farmer associations or through traditional methods of rural communication. The aforementioned will then constitue – a apriori- the guarantee needed to facilitate the continued availability in country of the much-needed standardized hazardous wastes disposal services for GOH entities and private actors and stakeholders long after these services would have been made available through this grant’s program/ technical assistance.

4. Organizational Capability: Each application shall include information that demonstrates the applicant's expertise and ability to meet or exceed the goals of this program.

Ideally demonstrating the existing or potential technical expertise and in-country hands-on experience associated with special / hazardous wastes management / disposal in particularly, and water, sanitation & hygiene related interventions in general, required from the prospective grantee. Existence of designated and sound facilities (equipment/logistics) to properly carrying out the AVANSE Hazardous wastes disposal activities per se, and supporting the proposed hands-on technical/ best practices training and institutional capacity building interventions also required so to ensure the effective establishment of standardized hazardous wastes disposal facilities in-country.

5. Personnel. The grantee should provide, as part of their application, a summary description of each of the key personnel, demonstrating their ability to perform the duties outlined in the statement of work in accordance with the evaluation factors found herein. DAI/AVANSE will evaluate the CV to determine the individual’s knowledge, skills and abilities in the areas listed herein.

Cliquer ici pour télécharger le dossier complet d’appel d’offres

avanse_grants@dai.com or hard copy to the following address:

Macorel Saint-Elien
Rue Gérard Babiole, Haut du Cap
Cap-Haitien, Haïti
Tel: 509-2816-1226/2816-7091l