RAISE Plus

The Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture and Trade awarded a Small Business Set Aside Indefinite Quantity Contract (IQC), the RAISE Plus Limited Scope of Work, to Weidemann Associates. This 5-year IQC began on September 29, 2004. It promotes market driven, environmentally sustainable agricultural development through technical services and field support to field missions, regional bureaus, and other USAID offices. The RAISE PLUS Limited Scope of Work IQC ceiling is $20 million.

The RAISE Plus Small Business Set Aside IQC provides short-term technical assistance to achieve more competitive, prosperous and environmentally sustainable agricultural and rural sectors in developing countries. RAISE Plus also provides technical assistance to increase rural family production and marketing of food crops, cash crops and natural resource products. It works to improve the competitiveness and profitability of agribusinesses and natural resource product enterprises. And it will assist USAID missions, local host country governments, and others in strategic planning and policy analysis.

Recent Work:

Post-crisis reconstruction has become a priority area for U.S. development assistance. One of the recommendations resulting from USAID’s 2006 Agriculture Recovery Workshop in Washington, D.C. was to develop an agricultural sector recovery assessment tool that would identify specific questions to guide assessment team members when conducting a post-crisis agricultural sector recovery assessment.

Section one of this document describs post-crisis environments and key challenges, and highlights areas to address when designing interventions. Section two identifies seven outcomes to consider to frame a sustainable agricultural recovery. Section three identifies specific interventions, distinguishing between short and longer term interventions. Section four contains sample agriculture recovery questions to assess the seven identified framework areas. These questions are designed to be asked during the transitional phase of reconstruction, rehabilitation and institution-building. The last three sections include additional identified programming issues, of references for further consultation and web sites with additional information.

Agricultural recovery for resilience : a preliminary framework

In late 2008 the USAID Mission in Pakistan initiated an effort to design a food and agriculture project. Weidemann Associates fielded a team of experts to assess current needs and to work with Pakistani farm groups, universities and officials to design an appropriate food and agriculture strategy. The present paper details the field work and design effort and, makes reccommendations for country programs.

Pakistan Food and Agriculture Weidemann Report 2009