Govt Funding for Development

1 Credit · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

This course is intended to help students to understand the process of government funding for international development programs and to help prepare them to write proposals and applications for government contracts and grants in international development and related fields as well as to understand the fundamentals of government consulting in the international development arena. It is designed to encourage the development of practical skills that will be directly relevant and useful in writing proposals and applications and working in the international development field. Our goal is to help students to be more marketable and better prepared to work at consulting firms/government contractors, NGOs, government agencies, intergovernmental organizations or other places involved in international development or other government-funded fields. The course will meet once a week for five weeks beginning in mid-January. We will begin with an overview of government contracting (acquisition) and grants (assistance), including consideration of the policy, legal and regulatory environment governing U.S. government funding, with a particular focus on the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. Department of State. Next, we will consider the scopes of work or program descriptions of actual USG requests for proposals (RFPs) or requests for applications (RFAs). Then, we will focus on the instructions and evaluation criteria from particular RFPs, which govern the process of responding to such RFPs, and we will compare the corresponding requirements from particular RFAs, all drawn from actual solicitations in the international development field. We will also touch on other mechanisms, such as Annual Program Statements, Broad Agency Announcements, Requests for Information and Requests for Statements of Interest, among others. We will learn about key organizations involved in government-funded international development and consider trends and implications of these issues for career choices. Throughout the course, we will also work on practical writing issues that are particularly relevant to proposals and applications for U.S. government funding.