Strengthening Electoral and Political Processes in Georgia through Direct Awards to Georgia's Civil Society Organizations

The United States Government, represented by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Mission in Georgia, requests applications from Georgian non-governmental organizations for projects to strengthen election and political processes in Georgia. USAID uses an Annual Program Statement (APS) to generate competition for awards when the Agency intends to support a variety of creative approaches and activities that contribute to the attainment of its strategic objectives. This APS is designed to seek relationships beyond traditional USAID norms by inviting submissions from local organizations, including those who have never received direct funding from USAID. The overall goal of USAID’s Strengthening Electoral and Political Processes in Georgia through Direct Awards to Georgia’s Civil Society Organizations APS is to support Georgian groups to mount credible electoral and political process monitoring activities and to inform the public of their recommendations in order to help engage citizens in electoral and political processes in Georgia. To achieve this goal, USAID intends to issue multiple awards under this APS to applicants who address the following objective: Increase the confidence of Georgian citizens in local and national elections by contributing to increased transparency and accountability of electoral and political processes.Subject to the availability of funds, USAID intends to provide funding for multiple cooperative agreements worth from $200,000 to $1,500,000 for up to 36 months to support activities related to election and political process monitoring for the upcoming election cycle in Georgia, which includes 2016 Parliamentary, 2017 local, and 2018 Presidential elections. Awards should be structured to cover the 2016 and 2017 election periods, with a possible extension period for 2018 presidential elections; interventions around the 2018 presidential elections should be proposed now, but would not be decided and finalized until a later date. USAID intends to make all awards to local organizations for the upcoming election cycle prior to the 2016 Parliamentary elections; local organizations should not expect that additional election and political process monitoring awards will be made between 2016 and 2018.