The narrow streets and sky blue doors and windows of Morocco’s crumbling mellahs, or Jewish quarters, contain a treasure trove of history. But when this history was at risk of being lost, two new USAID partners—Rabat-based Association Mimouna and New York-based American Sephardi Federation (ASF)—co-created a project, supported under USAID’s New Partnerships Initiative (NPI), to train residents of the mellahs to share the history of their neighborhoods as tour guides and through the sale of Judaica-focused handicrafts and traditional food, giving residents an economic lifeline while preserving an important dimension of Morocco’s diverse past.

What would development look like if solutions to persistent and complex problems were sourced and delivered from the ground up? To see the potential of this approach, just look to USAID’s Bureau for Development, Democracy, and Innovation, where the Exploratory Programs and Innovation Competitions (EPIC) team casts a wide net to incentivize, find, nurture, and fund development innovations through Agency competitions, tapping into out-of-the-box solutions from a host of new, nontraditional, and local partners.

South Sudan, a nation founded in 2011 following a destructive civil war, is a challenging place for international development organizations and partners to work. Threats to the safety of foreign development workers are widespread, making implementation of projects extremely difficult. In this context, programming through local organizations, who are embedded in communities, and therefore can operate less conspicuously, is almost a necessity. So when the South Sudan Mission needed to acquire data about the quality of services being provided to people living with HIV/AIDS around South Sudan, these circumstances, combined with a Mission team that was open-minded about finding the right mechanism for achieving the Agency’s objectives, created the conditions for a first-of-its-kind direct contract award to a local organization in South Sudan.

The USAID Office of Acquisition and Assistance's Industry Liaison Team will be hosting a number of webinars to help guide you through all that the new WorkwithUSAID.org platform has to offer as well as to share information on how to partner with USAID.

The Rainforest Alliance, funded by USAID as part of the New Partnerships Initiative, leverages local partnerships to help women in Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico develop leadership skills and access economic opportunities. Learn how the project tapped into local partners’ expertise to find success in new ways despite recent challenges.

A primary goal of USAID's New Partnerships Initiative (NPI) is to capitalize on good ideas, and the NPI team is working to make it easier for partners to present them to the Agency and apply for funding. In order to streamline the process, under NPI awards, applicants submit a three- to five-page “concept note” detailing the scope of the proposed concept and responding to questions in the solicitation. USAID uses these responses and the evaluation criteria outlined in solicitations in the selection process.

Want to learn more about working with USAID? Read this Q&A with Matt Johnson, USAID Industry Liaison and Communications Director for the Office of Acquisition and Assistance. He provides insights and practical advice for partners and access to important links for more information.

Intimidation. Violence. Hacking. These are among the threats Indonesian journalists face just to do their jobs. Although Indonesia has made impressive gains in political freedom in the last two decades, an apparent backsliding of democracy in recent years threatens that progress. USAID’s New Partnerships Initiative (NPI) responded by creating Media Empowerment for Democratic Integrity and Accountability (MEDIA), a project to strengthen Indonesia’s free press including through partnerships with seven local organizations.

When dealing with COVID-19, development and humanitarian organizations are no different from individuals and families—their only choice is to adapt. During this pandemic, organizations have been called on to help in ways that depart from usual operations. In addition, the virus has intensified some routine challenges.

A Q&A with Lovesun Parent, the director of external partnerships at USAID’s New Partnerships Initiative Incubator.