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 SOUP Project aims 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 (GCC), Global Health Initiative (GHI), and Feed the Future (FtF). This approach is consistent with USAID's increased focus on integrated programming and will help to scale up development impact and achieve core development objectives such as reducing extreme poverty in developing countries. The project entails training programs, urban analyses, performance and impact evaluations of related USAID programs, as well as knowledge management and communications and outreach products. Through an integrated systems approach, the SOUP 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 for the SOUP Project consists of ECODIT (prime contractor) and International City/Country Management Association (ICMA, major subcontractor). Resource Partners (RPs) include ICF International (ICF), Macfadden and Associates (Macfadden), URS/AECOM, and World Resources Institute (WRI). Key personnel for the project include Ms. Bonnie Walter as Chief of Party (COP)/Senior Urban Training Manager (UTM/PM) and Mr. Scott Gibbons as Senior Urban Planner/Senior Urban Specialist (SUS). During the third quarter of the Base Year, ECODIT and ICMA held regular in-person and telephone meetings with the USAID Contracting Officer's Representative (COR), Mr. Anthony (Tony) Piaskowy. The project team made significant accomplishments in project management tasks, including overhauling the USAID Urban Website and planning the upcoming training event on "Integration and Evidence for Urban Programming." The team also developed the workshop agenda, learning objectives, and contracted with expert consultants to deliver presentations on specific workshop topics. The SOUP Project training activity, originally planned for June 2016, was recast to focus on sector-specific projects and the urban agenda, and the use of data for decision-making in programming. The two-day workshop took place on June 20-21, with Ms. Bonnie Walter presenting findings of the Meta-Analysis of Urban Programming. The project team also designed a pre- and post-training learning assessment tool to evaluate the effectiveness of the training activity. The ECODIT team is supported by high-quality short-term technical assistance (STTA) specialists and by ECODIT's and ICMA's qualified Home Office (HO) staff. The project team is committed to delivering a series of inter-related activities to support USAID's Urban Programs Team and demonstrate the importance of sustainable urban service delivery in achieving development objectives.