Contract Vehicles

The Kaizen Company is the prime contractor for the USAID funded Pakistan Capacity Development Services (PCDS) Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract. Kaizen leads a consortium of local implementing partners including Crowe Horwath, VTT Global, and the Lahore University of Management Sciences to provide services that strengthen fiduciary accountability in relation to USAID missions. Services provided include institutional assessments, risk mitigation measures, and capacity building for USAID implementing partners.

Support Which Implements Fast Transitions (SWIFT) provides USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) with the means to support U.S. foreign policy objectives by catalyzing local initiatives to advance stability, peace, and democracy in response to complex political crises. Under SWIFT-Programs task orders are issued for which Contractors will a) establish, staff, manage, operate, and support a flexible, quickresponse mechanism capable of administering and implementing targeted activities under OTI Country or Regional Programs; and b) provide support to program-funded USAID personnel.

Support Which Implements Fast Transitions (SWIFT) provides USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) with the means to support U.S. foreign policy objectives by catalyzing local initiatives to advance stability, peace, and democracy in response to complex political crises. SWIFT-Support is restricted to Small Business Set-Aside. Under SWIFT-Support task orders are issued for which Contractors will a) recruit and deploy long term technical assistance to support OTI program operations, and, b) provide support to program-funded USAID personnel.

MCC’s Gender and Social Inclusion (GSI) Division requires a pool of firms that can provide a range of gender and social inclusion due diligence support and oversight throughout MCC’s program development and implementation processes across the sectors where MCC works to maximize sustainable poverty reduction across MCC partner countries.

Across all sectors, MCC seeks ways to achieve inclusive and sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction, and to advance the U.S. government’s ability to change the landscape of women’s economic empowerment around the world. MCC’s GSI group requires consulting services across several sectors and technical specialties to meet GSI needs throughout the lifecycle of compact and threshold programs. Specialized technical consulting services will support GSI by providing in depth technical specialization, research capacity, and support to develop and provide oversight of programs and activities that increase incomes for disadvantaged populations. Because MCC’s mandate is poverty reduction through economic growth, all work done on gender and social inclusion— from analysis to project development—examines its relationship to economic growth and poverty, and intermediating variables, using best available evidence.

MCC’s Gender Policy and Gender Integration Guidelines specify how gender and social analysis and inclusion are to be integrated at each stage of compact development and implementation. GSI’s oversight covers all phases of MCC’s work, from analyzing economic growth constraints and their causes, developing program logics, and designing projects, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. GSI seeks consulting services across all stages of the compact lifecycle to support key GSI needs. These needs are described in greater detail below, by step in the compact cycle:

I. Compact Development, which includes:

• Conducting preliminary analysis on social and gender issues
• Defining the gender and social dimensions as they relate to the identified constraint
• Project definition & development, and the gender and social dimensions, clarifying beneficiaries and economic impacts on different populations
• Laying out the logic for proposed interventions, including gender and social dimensions
• Developing activities/sub-activities and budgets, setting final beneficiary targets, identifying potential policy reforms as conditions precedent.

II. Compact Implementation, which includes:

• Completion of design studies, including the incorporation of gender and social inclusion elements
• Developing the Social and Gender Integration Plan, and monitoring its implementation
• Preparation of bid documents, including the need for social and gender protections as needed
• Contracting and monitoring oversight, both for GSI-specific activities as well as oversight of contractors undertaking work with social and gender dimensions
• Measuring, evaluating, and reporting on compact success, specifically with a gender and social inclusion angle

III. Compact Closeout, which includes:

• Completion of all compact projects, and writing a final report on gender and social inclusion achievements

The Resilience Objective (RO) of the Building Resilient and Inclusive Communities in Conflict (BRICC) activity is to foster resilience and stability in conflict-affected communities across Syria to prevent the re-emergence of extremist groups such as Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS); counter the influence of malign actors such as Iran; empower communities to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the conflict; and pave the way for safe, dignified, and voluntary return of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees. BRICC Task Order (TO) Contractors are expected to achieve this RO by working with stakeholders to achieve five intermediate results (IR):

1. Essential services restored and accessible;
2. Inclusive, participatory, accountable, and transparent governance strengthened;
3. Livelihoods restored and economies revived;
4. Access to education and vocational training expanded; and
5. Access to healthcare, mental health, and psycho-social support services expanded. To achieve this RO, BRICC TO Contractors are expected to apply an integrated, multi-sectoral, conflictsensitive approach across all IRs. TO Contractors are expected to coordinate and collaborate closely with other USAID and U.S. Government (USG) activities and like-minded donors.

Syria is the primary place of programmatic performance. BRICC program efforts will initially launch in areas outside of Regime control in northeast Syria. If the political, legal, and security situation permits, BRICC may expand program efforts to other parts of Syria.

The Kaizen Company became a MOBIS contract holder in 2012. MOBIS is a General Services Administration (GSA) Schedule available as a contracting mechanism for all federal agencies of the United States Government to enable streamlined procurement from pre-qualified contractors, like Kaizen. Under MOBIS, government purchasers can place task orders with Kaizen at pre-negotiated labor prices, with no need to review and justify requirements, allowing Kaizen to offer its services to other federal agencies through a streamlined process.