Assessment and Evaluation

The Water and Development IDIQ (WADI) will support USAID missions, bureaus, and other operating units in implementing USAID’s Water and Development Strategy. Task orders implemented through this IDIQ will reflect the Agency’s strategic direction in the water sector, including improving health outcomes through the provision of sustainable water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) and managing agricultural water sustainably and more productively to enhance food security. The University of Arizona will be a resource partner and able to compete with other resource partners for task orders. 

The University of Arizona is part of a consortium led by Tetra Tech that has been awarded a contract for an estimated $50 million to provide a broad range of support services to USAID’s 12 headquarters bureaus and offices in Washington and over 60 USAID field missions around the world.  This project puts the University of Arizona at the center of the conversation at USAID and within the context of USG foreign affairs on climate adaptation. The project will create opportunities, research and engagement for faculty from across the university. 

The Enhancing Evidence for Humanitarian Action activity aims to provide USAID’s BHA, its partners, and the broader humanitarian community with indicators and methods for measuring the impact of investments in early warning, Disaster Risk Reduction, and climate adaptation programming. The project draws on UA’s strength in interdisciplinary science to research indicators and methods for measuring behavior and landscape change through recurrent monitoring, remote sensing and earth observation, and qualitative inquiry. 

The Principal Investigator is Zack Guido, the Director of the Arizona Institute for Resilient Environments and Societies (AIRES), International Programs and Assistant Research Professor, School of Natural Resources and Environment. Team members include Alex Braithwaite from the School of Government and Public Policy; Jeff Michler and Anna Josephson from the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics; Beth Tellman from the School of Geography, Development, and Environment; Corrie Hannah from AIRES; and Tim Finan from the School of Anthropology. The project team includes the Tucson-based consulting firm Technical Assistance for NGOs (TANGO).

USAID has awarded an IDIQ contract to Tetra Tech ARD (ARD, Inc.); DAI Global, LLC; Abt Associates, Inc.; and Chemonics International, Inc., to provide services for the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) 7. The goal of FEWS NET 7 is to sustainably prevent food insecurity and famine. FEWS NET 7 is structured around four main pillars of activities: Emergency Food Insecurity Analysis, Management of a FEWS NET Learning and Data Hub (restricted to Small Business set-aside), Analysis of the Dynamics of Food, Nutrition and Livelihood Security, and Technology and Innovation. The University of Arizona is a resource partner for DAI and is able to compete for task orders issued under this IDIQ with DAI.

The Stakeholder Engagement Activities in the Caribbean: Prospects and Pitfalls project assesses current activities at regional and national scales that create structured opportunities for weather and climate service producers and decision makers to define user needs and provider capabilities and eventually promotes effective decisions based on climate information. The project focus on 15 Caribbean Island nations and territories, with specific emphasis on Jamaica, Dominica, and Guyana. The goals of this project are to provide key lessons about interdisciplinary collaborations around climate services to the World Meteorological Organization in order to inform their future activities that advance the use of weather and climate information in the Caribbean and beyond.