Potential New Care and Treatment (C&T) Health Activity. | 72051722RFICT00001

Opportunity Information: Apply for 72051722RFICT00001

The Potential New Care and Treatment (C&T) Health Activity is a USAID Mission Dominican Republic Request for Information (RFI) tied to a prospective health assistance award focused on HIV. USAID-Santo Domingo is using this RFI to gather written input from interested organizations on the topics and questions laid out in sections I through IV of the RFI document, with the information intended to help shape a future funding opportunity rather than to make an immediate award from the RFI itself. The activity is framed as a potential five-year Cooperative Agreement, meaning USAID anticipates a substantial level of engagement with the recipient during implementation, which is typical for complex health system and service delivery programs.

At a programmatic level, the envisioned goal is to strengthen the Dominican Republic health system in order to help the country reach HIV epidemic control. In practice, that points to improving the quality, coverage, and performance of HIV care and treatment services, with a strong emphasis on high-quality, client-centered service delivery. Client-centered HIV services generally implies designing and delivering care around patient needs and experiences, such as reducing barriers to testing and treatment, improving linkage to care, supporting treatment adherence, ensuring respectful and confidential services, and tailoring service delivery models to different populations and settings. The focus on health system strengthening suggests attention not only to direct service provision, but also to the underlying systems that make services sustainable and effective, such as workforce capacity, supply chain and laboratory systems, data quality and use, quality improvement approaches, referral networks, and coordination with national policies and institutions.

From a competition and eligibility standpoint, USAID notes it is contemplating restricting competition for this assistance instrument to local entities, which signals an intent to prioritize locally led implementation and local organizational capacity. Even if the award is limited to local entities, USAID indicates international organizations may still participate as part of a consortium, as long as the consortium is led by a local organization. This structure often allows local prime recipients to anchor governance and decision-making while drawing on specialized technical support, training capacity, or global best practices from international partners. The listing shows eligible applicants as "Unrestricted," but the narrative language about potentially restricting competition to local entities is an important indicator of USAID's direction of travel for this particular activity.

Administratively, the opportunity is identified as an earmark opportunity category and is classified under the Health funding activity category with CFDA number 98.001. The funding opportunity title is "Potential New Care and Treatment (C&T) Health Activity" and the opportunity number is 72051722RFICT00001. It was created on October 27, 2021, with an original closing date of November 30, 2021, for responses to the RFI. The posting does not specify an award ceiling or the number of expected awards in the provided fields, which is common for an RFI phase where the agency is still refining scope, budget expectations, and acquisition strategy based on market research and stakeholder feedback.

Overall, this notice signals USAID's intent to design a multi-year HIV care and treatment activity in the Dominican Republic that prioritizes service quality and patient experience while reinforcing the broader health system needed to sustain epidemic control. The RFI phase is essentially USAID's information-gathering step to understand the landscape of capable partners, feasible technical approaches, and potential implementation models, with a likely emphasis on local leadership and consortium-based collaboration where international organizations can play supporting roles.

• The Dominican Republic USAID-Santo Domingo in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Potential New Care and Treatment (C&T) Health Activity." 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 2021-10-27.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2021-11-30. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted.

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