Let Girls Learn Challenge Fund BAA FAQ

This initiative aims to co-develop innovative and collaborative ideas with external organizations to address the challenge of helping adolescent girls enroll and stay in secondary school. The Challenge Fund seeks to bring together organizations to contribute perspectives, expertise, and ideas to address this common goal. Eligible organizations for the Challenge Fund include public, private, for-profit, and nonprofit organizations, as well as institutions of higher education, public international organizations, non-governmental organizations, U.S. and non-U.S. governmental organizations, multilateral and international donor organizations. All organizations must be determined to be responsive to the Broad Agency Announcement and sufficiently responsible to perform or participate in the final award type. Organizations may submit multiple Expressions of Interest as long as they follow the guidelines stated in the Broad Agency Announcement. However, the Challenge Fund is looking for not only innovative ideas but also organizations with expertise working on solutions to help adolescent girls stay in school. An Expression of Interest that demonstrates this experience and includes more than one program, idea, or approach may be as successful as an organization that submits multiple Expressions of Interest. The Challenge Fund is open to organizations that do not have programming in the Let Girls Learn pilot countries, Malawi and Tanzania. While it is encouraged to focus on these countries, USAID will not bar a submission that incorporates another country. Expressions of Interest will indicate the research or development idea that will work towards discovering potential solutions to the Problem and Challenge Statement(s). Intellectual Property (IP) concerns are addressed through the co-creation process. When submitting an Expression of Interest, organizations should not disclose any IP that they wish to protect. Instead, they should focus on the expertise they bring to the co-creation process. If selected for the co-creation, all information provided in the EOIs will be disclosed and used as part of the co-creation process. USAID will work with the partner to protect IP that is required to be disclosed in the concept paper and subsequent award. The Challenge Fund does not have a target for the number of awards that will be made. The outcome of the co-creation workshop and the stages of the process that follow will determine the number of awards made. The average amount of funding that the Let Girls Learn Challenge Fund expects to grant per funded proposal cannot be predicted, as the amount of resources made available under the BAA will depend on the concepts received and the availability of funds. Organizations may submit an Expression of Interest by November 30, 2015. The format and submission requirements for the Expressions of Interest are specified in the Broad Agency Announcement, including the requirement to submit electronically to [email protected], with a maximum length of two pages and a specific format for the header and graphic.