Feed the Future Enabling Environment for Food Security Call Order 2 Annual Report

The project aimed to augment the capacity of USAID/Washington bureaus and Feed the Future focus and aligned Missions worldwide to address constraints to the enabling environment for food security. Through a blanket purchase agreement (BPA) mechanism, USAID issued individual call orders to procure support around technical analysis and targeted technical assistance, knowledge management, capacity building, implementation support, on-demand consulting services, and institutional support services. The reporting period for Call Order 2 spanned from October 2016 to September 2017. During this time, the project team supported the BPA mechanism-wide deliverables across three call orders. The team collaborated closely with USAID/BFS/MPI to ensure alignment with expectations generated through the Life of Project (LOP) work plan. However, some notable divergences related to the level of Mission-generated call orders and activities were observed. The project team supported the development of a short video to advance the objectives under Call Order 1, specifically introducing and exposing a wider audience to important issues and findings related to the Southern Africa Regional Seed Sector (SARSS) Assessment. The video was targeted at a general audience of stakeholders interested in learning about ways to strengthen local and regional seed systems as a pathway to agriculture development. The video was profiled in Agrilinks and can be accessed through YouTube, with nearly 300 unique users viewing it and over 1,000 individuals accessing it on LinkedIn. The management team met regularly with USAID BPA leadership to coordinate support requests and priorities related to existing call orders. The launch of the Global Food Security Strategy (GFSS) and the demand-driven nature of the mechanism made these meetings critical to keeping the team well-coordinated with current priorities internally at USAID. A series of work planning conversations were held with the USAID leadership team and key stakeholders, which prompted a number of possible directions that didn't ultimately have the funding to proceed. However, it did prove to be a useful opportunity to build awareness and buy-in internally at USAID for the mechanism. The program manager and deputy program manager provided technical oversight, direction, and coherence across activities on all three call orders. The KM officer continued to lead integration of knowledge management into all activities, consistent with the project's BPA-wide KM implementation plan. The team expanded and built out its roster of available consultants to respond to on-demand support requests and expanded its sub-agreement with Cloudburst to include the ability to access knowledge management labor categories based on their demonstrated capabilities. The project expects to review its PMEP in the coming months in light of the evolving programmatic landscape since the project's inception and the new GFSS. The project provided strategic technical inputs to internal USAID processes to develop indicators for the GFSS and update those required and recommended to Missions as part of Feed the Future program monitoring and evaluation. This included participation in internal USAID processes and provision of technical analysis and institutional support services. The project team worked closely with the USAID/BFS Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) team to ensure alignment with the GFSS and update indicators for the Feed the Future program. The project's activities were guided by the Life of Project (LOP) work plan, which outlined expected activities for the first year of Call Order 2. The team met with USAID BPA leadership regularly to coordinate support requests and priorities related to existing call orders. The launch of the GFSS and the demand-driven nature of the mechanism made these meetings critical to keeping the team well-coordinated with current priorities internally at USAID. The project team expanded its roster of available consultants and expanded its sub-agreement with Cloudburst to include the ability to access knowledge management labor categories based on their demonstrated capabilities.