Annual Report: Support of the Urban Policy (SOUP) Project

The project's period of performance consists of the Base Year (October 1, 2015, through September 30, 2016) and four Option Years, with Option Year One covering the period from October 1, 2016, to September 30, 2017. The project's objective is to encourage the adoption and application of an "urban lens" to various phases of the Agency's Program Cycle, particularly within the context of important Congressional Earmarks for initiatives such as Water and Development, the Global Health Initiative (GHI), and Feed the Future (FtF). The SOUP Project entails training programs, urban analyses, evaluations of related USAID programs, as well as knowledge management and communications products. The project is delivered through an integrated systems approach, supporting USAID's Urban Team to demonstrate the importance of sustainable urban service delivery in key development sectors such as climate change, health, education, food security, and economic growth. The project encourages buy-in from Agency staff, technical and regional bureaus, country missions, collaborating donors, and host country partners for the successful implementation of USAID's Urban Policy. The ECODIT Consortium for the SOUP Project consists of ECODIT, the prime contractor, and International City/Country Management Association (ICMA), the major subcontractor. Resource Partners (RPs) include ICF International (ICF), Macfadden and Associates, AECOM, Mott MacDonald, Global Communities (GC), World Learning, IMC Worldwide, Development Transformations (DT), and the World Resources Institute (WRI). The ECODIT Team for the SOUP Project includes Mr. Steve Anlian as Chief of Party (COP)/Senior Urban Training Manager (UTM/PM) for Option Year One, Ms. Roula Attar as ECODIT's Home Office Program Manager, and Ms. Jessica Johnston as Project Manager for ICMA. Throughout the one-year reporting period, ECODIT and ICMA held ongoing in-person and telephone meetings with the USAID Contracting Officer's Representatives (CORs) and conducted biweekly "Check-in Calls" with the respective COR and the USAID Activity Manager for Tasks A, C, and D. Task A: Training involved the development of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to be offered under the SOUP project, with Dr. Elizabeth Strange submitting the detailed "course script" for MOOC #1 on Urban Resilience and MOOC #2 on Urban Water. However, the delivery of these courses was postponed beyond Option Year One to facilitate input from the USAID Global Climate Change (GCC) Office and Water Office (E3/W).