If ever there was a year when USAID and services corporation Macfadden were put to the test, it was 2014.
Providing support to the agency's Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance, Macfadden CEO David Binns said the response to critical refugee events in Iraq, Syria and South Sudan, coupled with the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, was unprecedented.
"It just so happened that last year was OFDA's 50th anniversary year, and for the first time in that history, OFDA had to respond to four separate ... Level 3 crises," he said.
"That would require sending out disaster response teams, setting up response management teams to manage the crisis."
Macfadden, the Silver Spring-based professional services company, has served as USAID's disaster response contractor for the past 15 years, Binns said, and that partnership has helped pave a way for the company's new $300 million contract with the federal government.
"Over the decades-plus that Macfadden has supported the [Bureau of Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance], we've helped them in responses to literally hundreds of events like that all around the world."
The indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity Contract is for five years and will allow the company to continue providing technical support to USAID's DCHA bureau through real-time response, including "maintaining effective early warning systems, innovative assessment methodologies, flexible contingency funding, rapid programming mechanisms, significant prepositioned commodities, and effective deployment and coordination mechanisms," according to a release.
Binns said the contract continues work that has become increasingly needed as disasters like the Nepal earthquake call on USAID to respond quickly.
"Our team helped to process over $2 billion in grants for international disaster assistance or emergency food security programs," he said. "Those are both to large international NGOs as well as a lot of the locals. So it's a lot of churn in making sure we are getting the critical funds out to the first responders, those on the ground."
The contract will also support technical response to disasters, like Macfadden's work with the Center for International Disaster Information, which helps deliver aid and donations outreach for impacted areas.
"One of the hallmarks of this contract, which is different from a lot of the more traditional USAID development work is the real-time emergency response," he said. "It requires that agile flexibility, that immediate response to crisis situations and we've got a just an outstanding staff that is very used to working in that kind of demanding, constantly changing environment."
Greenleaf Integrated Strategies, Inc. and Mendez-England & Associates will serve as subcontractors for the deal, which is slated for five years as DCHA's prime institutional contractor.
