Final report : TMG/OFDA [The Mitchell Group/Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance] support contract USAID/BHR/OFDA -- contract no. AOT-0000-C-00-4121-00

TMG successfully supported OFDA through 403 declared disasters over the life of the contract. Some additional challenges that OFDA and TMG met included several moves, a government shutdown and subsequent furlough, a reduction in force, a momentous change in security requirements, Y2K, two changes in OFDA directorship, two reorganizations, workforce changes, two increases in level of effort (LOE), five project managers, and substantial changes in information technology. Several major accomplishments shaped the successful implementation of this contract: (1) design and implementation of a training program that fostered relationships with other bureaus and offices within the agency and helped educate development staff about humanitarian assistance; (2) participation in the development and implementation of the Response Management Team; (3) computer support throughout 403 disaster responses, seven office relocations, and Y2K preparations. Several issues affecting the contract overall should be reviewed and addressed as they will affect follow-on contracts. These issues, which include contract monitoring and evaluation, command and control, changing technologies, changing needs, and workforce stability, imparted several valuable lessons to TMG: (1) A monitoring and evaluation plan must be developed for support services contracts in order to judge the contractor"s performance and the true value of the contract to OFDA. (2) There must be clarity of roles and responsibilities and tasking authority or the contractor will be faced with conflicting taskings from the same client. (3) New technology must be incorporated into OFDA"s workplace. Underutilization of current technological tools increases the workload on staff, as well as the amount of time to complete tasks. (Author abstract)