Quarterly Status Report: Support of the Urban Policy (SOUP) Project

The project's period of performance consists of one Base Year and four Option Years, with the Base Year covering the period from October 1, 2015, through September 30, 2016. The project's primary 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 Global Climate Change, Global Health Initiative, and Feed the Future. The SOUP Project entails training programs, urban analyses, performance and impact evaluations of related USAID programs, as well as knowledge management and communications and outreach products. The project will deliver a series of inter-related activities to support USAID's Urban Programs Team to demonstrate to internal and external audiences that sustainable urban service delivery is vital to making progress in key development sectors such as climate change, health, education, food security, and economic growth. The ECODIT Consortium, which consists of ECODIT (prime contractor) and International City/Country Management Association (ICMA, major subcontractor), has been working closely with USAID to implement the project. The consortium has developed a regular meeting schedule with the new USAID Contracting Officer's Representative (COR), Mr. Anthony (Tony) Piaskowy, and has held meetings with the COR to discuss project activities, including the overhaul of the Making Cities Work (MCW) website and the planning of the upcoming training event on "Basic Principles of Urban Programming." The project has made significant progress in the second quarter of the Base Year, including the development of a regular meeting schedule with the USAID COR and the planning of the upcoming training event. The training event, which is scheduled to take place on June 20-21, 2016, will cover a broad range of key topics related to the Agency's urban agenda, including climate change integration and basics of urban program planning. The event will be held in conjunction with the USAID DCHA Bureau's Field Officers Conference and will take advantage of the presence of a significant number of country mission officers in Washington. The SOUP Project has also made progress in the development of a draft Training Agenda, which has been informed by feedback received from a DCHA programming questionnaire. The agenda is aimed at meeting the needs and expectations of the target audience (primarily DCHA officers) and complementing topics addressed in the overall DCHA Conference. The project has also contracted with FHI 360 for the provision of a training space in the same location as the DCHA Conference, to encourage strong participation by USAID staff. In addition to the training event, the project has also made progress in the development of knowledge management and communications and outreach products. The project has held meetings with the COR to discuss the overhaul of the MCW website and has conducted weekly progress reports by telephone conferencing with the COR. The project has also developed a Performance Monitoring Plan (PMP) to track progress and ensure that the project is meeting its objectives. Overall, the SOUP Project has made significant progress in the second quarter of the Base Year, and the consortium is committed to continuing to work closely with USAID to implement the project and achieve its objectives.