BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT: HARNESSING LOCAL INNOVATIONS, EXPERTISE, AND PARTNERSHIPS TO SOLVE DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES IN ASIA | BAA OAA RM 2017

Opportunity Information: Apply for BAA OAA RM 2017

The USAID Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) titled "Harnessing Local Innovations, Expertise, and Partnerships to Solve Development Challenges in Asia" is a flexible, partnership-focused funding opportunity designed to surface and support new ideas that can improve development outcomes across the Asia region. Rather than prescribing a single project or narrow set of activities, the BAA is meant to attract a wide range of concepts and collaborators so USAID can work with partners to jointly shape solutions. The central theme is collaboration: USAID is explicitly looking to co-create, co-design, co-invest, and collaborate with qualified organizations on efforts that move from early research and development through piloting and testing, and ultimately toward scaling approaches that prove effective.

At its core, the announcement emphasizes innovation that is practical and cost-effective, with a clear preference for interventions that can deliver sustainable results over time. USAID signals strong interest in "leapfrog" technologies and other novel approaches, meaning solutions that allow communities, institutions, or markets to bypass slower, traditional development pathways and adopt more advanced, efficient methods directly. The scope is intentionally broad and includes not only new technologies, but also creative program models, implementation approaches, and cross-sector strategies that can address persistent development problems in Asia. A notable feature of the BAA is its openness to "unorthodox partnerships," suggesting that USAID is willing to engage beyond typical development implementers and is actively encouraging collaborations that combine different capabilities, such as technical expertise, local knowledge, private-sector delivery capacity, and research or policy experience.

Eligibility under this BAA is wide-ranging. It is open to public and private entities, for-profit and nonprofit organizations, universities and other institutions of higher education, non-governmental organizations, public international organizations, U.S. and non-U.S. governmental organizations, and multilateral and international donor organizations. This broad eligibility is consistent with the BAA's goal of tapping local and regional expertise while also enabling global organizations with relevant capabilities to participate. Regardless of the type of applicant, organizations must ultimately be deemed responsible to perform or participate in the award, which typically means they must demonstrate adequate operational, financial, and managerial capacity and meet applicable U.S. government requirements for federal assistance or related instruments.

From an administrative standpoint, the opportunity is listed as a discretionary program administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development. The funding opportunity number is BAA OAA RM 2017, associated with CFDA 98.001, and it was created on February 8, 2017. The original closing date is shown as March 3, 2019. The listing does not provide a stated award ceiling (shown as 0) and does not specify an expected number of awards, which usually indicates that awards may vary significantly in size and structure, and that USAID intends to maintain flexibility based on the quality of concepts received, availability of funding, and fit with evolving regional priorities. The funding instrument type is labeled as "Other," which commonly aligns with BAAs where USAID may use different award mechanisms depending on the nature of the proposed collaboration and the maturity of the solution being advanced.

Overall, this BAA functions as an open door for organizations to bring forward innovative, scalable ideas for Asia and to build a partnership with USAID around those ideas. It is especially suited to proposals that combine strong technical or program innovation with real-world feasibility, demonstrate a pathway from testing to scale, and leverage partnerships or co-investment arrangements that can sustain impact beyond the initial award period.

• The Agency for International Development in the other sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT: HARNESSING LOCAL INNOVATIONS, EXPERTISE, AND PARTNERSHIPS TO SOLVE DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES IN ASIA" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 98.001.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2017-02-08.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2019-03-03. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Eligible applicants include: Others.

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