EQUIP2 Final Report.pdf - Education Policy Data Center

The Unique Features of
EQUIP2
EQUIP’s unique features made it a dominant presence in USAID’s education
portfolio from 2003-2012. First, the mechanism itself was unusual because
its pre-competed Leader with Associates award was characterized by costshare
and partnerships. Second, its associate awards did not have a ceiling on
the dollar value. Third, a team of education policy experts from USAID and a
consortium of partner organizations put together a broad-based and rigorous
research agenda. Finally, the engagement between the Leader and associate
awards created a new kind of exchange between knowledge generation and
program design. The unique features of EQUIP2 made it possible for an
extraordinary amount of research, collaboration, and project implementation
to take place over the course of nine years.
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Thh e Unique Features of EQUIP2
THE MECHANISM
EQUIP awards are Leader with Associate cooperative agreements (LWAs)
that consist of partnerships with experienced organizations chosen
competitively for their ability to assist USAID with addressing educational
needs. The “Leader” is the core research grant awarded to the partnership.
Under this core grant and pre-competed mechanism, missions and bureaus
grant cooperative agreements, “associates” awards, to EQUIP. These associate
awards align with the thematic focus of the Leader award (i.e., classroom/
school, policy/systems, or youth).
The EQUIP2 Leader award allocated central funds to the lead organization
(AED; later, FHI 360) and a consortium of partners to provide state-of-theart
knowledge and the most current research on a range of issues related to
education policy, systems, and management. This agreement included a costshare
requirement of 15 percent, a goal that FHI 360 substantially exceeded,
generating nearly $2 million through a variety of partnerships. The goal of
cost share is to establish more local ownership and to identify sustainable
partnerships to support a country’s education initiatives.
The associate award option was attractive to USAID missions and bureaus
for several reasons. First, the pre-competed Leader award made the process
of initiating projects quicker and more efficient than stand-alone, competed