Central America Regional Trilateral Cooperation (Rtc) Aid-596-To-16-00006
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CENTRAL AMERICA REGIONAL TRILATERAL COOPERATION (RTC) AID-596-TO-16-00006 Final Assessment Report Submitted April 11, 2017 International Business & Technical Consultants, Inc. 8618 Westwood Center Drive, #400 Vienna, VA 22182 DISCLAIMER This assessment was prepared by International Business & Technical Consultants, Inc. (IBTCI) for review by the United States Agency for International Development. The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government. Contents Acronyms/Abbreviations.....................................................................................................................3 Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................5 The Regional Trilateral Cooperation Project Assessment .......................................................................7 The Consultative Process.....................................................................................................................9 The Advanced State of South-South Cooperation in Latin America.........................................................9 The Potential for Expanding USAID Trilateral Assistance...................................................................... 13 USAID Mission Assessment of Past Trilateral Activities ........................................................................ 16 SSC Provider Motives for Development Cooperation .......................................................................... 18 Selecting, Managing and Financing Candidate Trilateral Activities........................................................ 21 Matching Specific Development Problems and Potential Solutions ...................................................... 25 Preparing the Local Partner to Manage Trilateral Cooperation ............................................................ 27 Findings and Recommendations ........................................................................................................ 27 Annex A: Task Order Questions ......................................................................................................... 34 Annex B: South-South Provider Profiles.............................................................................................. 39 Annex C: Current RTC Activity Planner ............................................................................................... 54 Annex D: Current Trilateral Activities and Concepts ............................................................................ 56 Annex E: Proposed Forms ................................................................................................................. 75 Annex F: Websites for South South Cooperation ................................................................................ 80 2 Acronyms/Abbreviations ABC Brazilian Agency of Cooperation AGCID Chilean Agency of International Cooperation AMEXCID Mexican Agency of Cooperation and Development APC Presidential Agency of International Cooperation of Colombia APCI Peruvian Agency of International Cooperation AUCI Uruguayan Agency of International Cooperation CAM Central America and Mexico CARICOM Caribbean Community CARSI Central American Regional Security Initiative CDCS Country Development Cooperation Strategy CEN Strategy U.S. Strategy for Engagement in Central America CENTA National Center of Agriculture and Forest Technology COL-COL Colombia-Colombia COR Contracting Officer’s Representative DAC Development Assistance Committee DAI Development Alternatives Inc. DG Democracy and Governance DGCIN General Directorate of International Cooperation EC European Commission EG Economic Growth E3 Environment, Education, Economic Growth Practice area. FAO United Nations Organization of Food and Agriculture FPEMP Fiscal Policy and Expenditure Management Project FUSADES Fundación Salvadoreña para el Desarrollo Económico y Social GIS Geographic Information System HICD Human and Institutional Capacity Development IBTCI International Business & Technical Consultants, Inc. IDB Inter-American Development Bank ILEA International Law Enforcement Academies INIFAP National Institute of Forest, Agriculture and Livestock Investigations INSAFORP Salvadoran Institute of Professional Formation JICA Japan International Cooperation Agency LAC Latin America and the Caribbean 3MINED Ministry of Education MOF Ministry of Finance MOU Memorandum of Understanding 3M&E Monitoring and Evaluation NGO Non-Governmental Organization PIFCSS Iberoamerican Program to Strengthen South-South Cooperation PPL Policy, Planning and Learning Bureau OAS Organization of American States 3 OCA Organizational Capacity Assessment RDCS Regional Development Cooperation Strategy RTC Regional Trilateral Cooperation SIECA Central American Secretariat for Economic Integration TAP Trilateral Assistance Program? UN United Nations UNAC Unidad Especializada Anticorrupción UNICEF United Nations Fund for Infancy USAID United States Agency for International Development USDA US Department of Agriculture USG United States Government USPSC US Personnel Service Contractor VTC Video Teleconference WFP World Food Programme 4 Regional Trilateral Cooperation Project Contractor’s Assessment Executive Summary Regional Trilateral Cooperation (RTC) is a 3-4 year, $5.6 million USAID Central America-Mexico regional project designed to centralize management of regional and bilateral trilateral cooperation activities through a single contractor, International Business & Technical Consultants, Inc. (IBTCI), working in partnership with a local partner, Salvadoran Foundation for Economic and Social Development (FUSADES). RTC is intended to strengthen USAID program results through the technical contributions of South-South cooperation (SSC) provider countries in Latin America. This assessment is intended to determine the USAID program demand and prospects for successful engagement with SSC partners based on a series of interviews, surveys and research. Central American countries have increasingly benefitted from a vast amount of South-South financial and technical assistance from SSC providers in many sectors. USAID missions in Central America have engaged in trilateral cooperation as part of this process, including through formal agreements with Mexico, Colombia, Brazil and Chile. SSC assumes that provider and receiver countries are equal partners, both benefiting from the shared experience, exchange of technical information and closer ties. While USAID mission staff view trilateral cooperation, notably through observation tours and technical assistance, as a benefit to their programs, experience shows that there are substantial time and energy demands in initiating and managing this form of assistance that can be more efficiently addressed through the RTC mechanism. Other Central American and Mexico (CAM) missions expressed an interest in RTC, though no concrete requests for support emerged in those discussions. Early trilateral activities showed the value of clear planning and expectation management, to have streamlined administration of the cooperation, to engage a trained facilitator in observation visits, to limit observation tours to key change makers, and to respect SSC provider protocol requirements. The assessment identified 29 potential trilateral activities that USAID activity managers, in conjunction with their implementing partners, have either initiated, planned or are considering. Some of these activities may later result in multiple observation tours or visits from SSC provider technical experts. Because about half of these activities are intended for Fiscal Year 17, this implies an immediate large workload for RTC that will be sustained through years two and three. Trilateral assistance may also involve regional meetings, workshops or longer-term SSC technical assistance. The assessment consulted with six of the potential SSC provider external development agencies, as well as some of their San Salvador-based embassy cooperation specialists. There was unanimous interest in cooperating with USAID on behalf of Central American development, and Central America is in general a strategic target for these SSC providers who in most cases have ongoing South-South cooperation in the sub-region. 5 The assessment recommends that trilateral activities be: • managed as government-to-government assistance even when Non-Government Organization (NGO) or private sector models or expertise is engaged; • align with approved USAID strategic plans and approved projects/activities, which in turn support the Alliance for Prosperity and the U.S, Strategy for Engagement in Central America (CEN Strategy); • broadly share the SSC database of provider profiles and catalogs of models and expertise with other CAM missions; • understand the possibility of shifts in SSC provider priorities based on evolving South- South political and economic relationships; • make accommodations given the differences between USAID’s results-oriented donor assistance model and South-South forms of cooperation; and • make discrete contributions to SSC partner capacity by sharing USAID strategic, project design and M&E methodologies. The Contractor has also initiated steps to fully engage FUSADES, its local partner, in RTC management and to continue to strengthen FUSADES according to a recent Organizational Capacity Assessment set of findings and recommendations so