The U.S. Agency for International Development is now publishing contracts and grants for Haiti’s rehabilitation in French and Creole to allow local organizations to bid on these opportunities, an official of the agency has revealed.
In the aftermath of last year’s massive earthquake, many of the USAID contracts “were selected based on pre-competed and instruments” to allow for a rapid humanitarian response, according to Russell Porter, USAID coordinator for Haiti earthquake reconstruction. Many of the USAID grants and contracts to date are focused on emergency relief, he added.
“But going forward, what we’re looking for is to be able to partner with as many groups on the ground as we can. And I think we – right now, we’re putting contracts and grant – scopes of work and proposals, documents into French and Creole when we can so that people on the ground can respond to them and bid on them as well,” he said in a Jan. 10 teleconference.
Porter said organizations contracted by USAID directly such as the International Organization for Migration has subcontracted to thousands of local non-governmental organizations.
“I think that we’re doing a lot to sort of bring in the local Haitian organizations, be they NGOs or contractors into this. And we’ve worked a lot through a lot of – through local NGOs,” Porter said, citing 250 Haitian farm cooperatives that USAID tapped for its agricultural program.
