SOLICITATION NUMBER: 720BHA23R00040

ISSUANCE DATE: July 19, 2023

CLOSING DATE AND TIME: September 5, 2023 12:00 P.M. Eastern Time SUBJECT: Solicitation for U.S. Personal Service Contractor (USPSC)

Dear Prospective Offerors:

The United States Government (USG), represented by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is seeking offers from qualified persons to provide personal services under contract as described in this solicitation.

Offers must be in accordance with Attachment 1 of this solicitation. Incomplete or unsigned offers will not be considered. Offerors should retain copies of all offer materials for their records.

USAID will evaluate all offerors based on stated evaluation criteria. USAID encourages all individuals, including those from disadvantaged and under-represented groups, to respond to the solicitation.

This solicitation in no way obligates USAID to award a PSC contract, nor does it commit USAID to pay any cost incurred in the preparation and submission of the offer.

Any questions must be directed in writing to the Point of Contact specified in Attachment 1. Sincerely,

Ousay Wahaj

Supervisory Contracting Officer

Office of Acquisition & Assistance

(M/OAA/BHA-CPS/PSC)

 

720BHA23R00040 

ATTACHMENT 1 

I. GENERAL INFORMATION 

1. SOLICITATION NO.: 720BHA23R00040

2. ISSUANCE DATE: July 19, 2023

3. CLOSING DATE AND TIME FOR RECEIPT OF OFFERS: September 5, 2023, 12:00 P.M. Eastern Time

4. POINT OF CONTACT: TPQ Recruitment Team, BHA.TPQRecruitment@usaid.gov 5. POSITION TITLE: Senior Pharmacy Advisor (Multiple Positions)

6. MARKET VALUE: $99,908 - $129,878 equivalent to GS-14, includes locality pay.

Final compensation will be negotiated within the listed market value and will include Locality Pay for domestic USPSCs based on the location of the Official USAID Worksite, or the approved alternative worksite if approved for remote work. USPSCs performing overseas are not entitled to Locality Pay.

Salaries over and above the top of the pay range will not be entertained or negotiated.

7. PLACE OF PERFORMANCE: Remote

Relocation expenses will not be reimbursed for U.S. – based positions.

This position has been designated as suitable for remote work. The contractor will be authorized to perform the services under this contract from an alternative worksite. For PSCs authorized to remote work, the alternative worksite determines the locality pay for compensation purposes.

8. PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE: Five (5) years, tentatively 145 day estimated start date from closing

9. ELIGIBLE OFFERORS: U.S. Citizens Only

10. SECURITY LEVEL REQUIRED: Secret

If there is a change in circumstances requiring access to National Security information classified at the Top-Secret level, the offeror may be asked to obtain and maintain a Secret up to Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information level clearance as provided by USAID.

11. STATEMENT OF DUTIES 

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) works to save lives, alleviate human suffering, and reduce the impact of disasters by helping people in need become more self-reliant. BHA is responsible for planning, coordinating, developing, achieving, monitoring, and evaluating international humanitarian assistance falling into two conceptual areas: 1) Humanitarian Response during emergencies and 2) Early Recovery, Risk Reduction, and Resilience activities to address longer-term recovery after emergencies. You can learn more about BHA on our website.

TPQ leads the BHA’s efforts to ensure high quality programmatic and technical leadership, oversight, and guidance. TPQ is responsible for providing policy, normative guidance, tools, facilitation, and capacity building to assist the Bureau in achieving optimal humanitarian outcomes through capturing and applying technical best practice and contextually appropriate approaches, strategic design, consistent and effective performance monitoring, comprehensive and appropriate evaluation, and purposeful learning across the full spectrum of BHA responses and programming. TPQ staff actively participate and provide technical leadership in interagency and global fora, including leading BHA’s technical engagement with academia and thought leaders. As BHA’s geographic and topical areas of coverage expand, TPQ designs, supports, and coordinates research to advance humanitarian assistance programming, and leads BHA in meeting the increasing demand for technical and programmatic standardization, integration, and oversight to meet Agency, Congressional, and other demands.

BHA’s DIVERSITY PHILOSOPHY 

Your Uniqueness is Welcome Here!

It takes talented people with unique experiences to provide the best humanitarian aid possible. We are committed to having a workforce that reflects the global communities we serve. We strive to create an inclusive workplace, where everyone brings their authentic selves to work. We invite you to join us in providing humanitarian assistance to save lives and alleviate the suffering around the world.

STATEMENT OF DUTIES TO BE PERFORMED 

The Senior Pharmacy Advisor will provide technical expertise related to pharmaceutical and medical commodities to the Bureau's staff and implementing partners in humanitarian responses. The Senior Pharmacy Advisor is responsible for ensuring the safety, efficacy, and quality of these commodities, both for supporting quality health programming and ensuring compliance with related USAID policies.

This position is part of the Public Health and Nutrition (PHN) Division, which is part of the Office of Technical and Program Quality (TPQ) within the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA). The PHN Division leads BHA efforts to protect the public health of supported populations, encompassing expertise in the following technical areas: health, nutrition, food technology, and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH). The Health Team further leads technical efforts in health assistance, including health systems support, essential health services, higher level care, public health emergencies, and pharmaceuticals and medical commodities.

Manage and execute recommendations and decisions related to pharmaceutical and medical commodity procurement needs for BHA’s humanitarian assistance.

● Provide advice and technical expertise to BHA’s geographical offices for awards with pharmaceutical and medical commodities for humanitarian response needs.

● Review partner applications for BHA funding to ensure proper and timely procurement of quality pharmaceutical goods.

● Review and approve requests for the procurement of restricted commodities and medical commodities.

Provide technical guidance and expertise related to pharmaceuticals and medical commodities regulatory matters.

● Maintain a list of prequalified suppliers, ensuring companies meet USAID criteria and adhere to regulatory requirements.

● Provide expert advice on how to navigate supply chain functions and challenges such as commodity shortages, shipping and transportation delays, importation and distribution, and monitoring global trends that impact humanitarian assistance.

● Brief stakeholders on international standards and best practices for management of medical commodities and pharmaceuticals in humanitarian response.

● Maintain close coordination with Health Advisors and BHA’s geographical teams to provide effective expertise for human health and agricultural/livestock programming.

Provide ongoing award monitoring and quality control for BHA’s awards and partners.

● Provide technical review and analysis during the life of an award to BHA and partners.

● Work with partners to troubleshoot technical issues that arise, and ensure regulatory compliance related to pharmaceutical and medical commodities.

● Conduct site visits and technical monitoring to assess health facilities and pharmaceutical storage areas.

● Provide ongoing technical oversight to ensure proper use of commodities and effective partner systems and supply chain management.

● Provide expertise and guidance to partners on how to navigate supply chain challenges.

Frequently use written and oral communication:

● Regularly share information, lead, and make decisions in meetings with teams, divisions, bureau colleagues, and external stakeholders, among others, to advance programming goals.

● Maintain frequent and timely communication with BHA staff and partners via email, phone calls, and in person.

● Engage regularly with BHA senior leadership and others throughout USAID to provide briefings and high-level recommendations related to pharmaceuticals and medical commodities in humanitarian response.

● Read, review, analyze, and write reports, communications, and documentation produced by BHA; ensure accuracy and quality in communications for distribution.

● Maintain a high level of situational awareness of current humanitarian crises and BHA responses.

● Successfully manage a high volume of email correspondence, independently triaging the most urgent and top priorities.

● Use Google Suite and Microsoft Office, as well as other USAID-specific systems.

Financial management:

● Participate in and make recommendations about strategic decisions involving financial and budgetary issues.

Responsibility and decision-making:

● Share technical expertise with junior team members, through mentorship, training, and problem-solving support.

● Exercise independent judgment and decision making with discretion and personal responsibility.

● This role does not have supervisory responsibilities; however, the PSC may serve in an acting leadership role within the bureau in order to meet short-term staffing needs, not to exceed 120 days in a 12-month contract year.

● This position may be expected to be able to qualify, train for and routinely serve on disaster/humanitarian responses in Washington DC or in the disaster area for 2-6 weeks (or more) intervals. These can either be Disaster Assistance Response Teams (DARTs) and/or Response Management Teams (RMTs). DARTs are deployed to the field in response to disasters and operate in the field, providing staff an opportunity to deploy overseas for an extended period of time (e.g., 6-8 weeks). RMTs are based in Washington, DC and provide services to support DARTs, such as coordination and external engagement, communications, planning, logistics, travel coordination, or other similar duties (depending on the RMT role).

● As needed, may serve on temporary short-term assignments (“detail”) on other teams within the office or bureau to meet operational needs during staff shortages. Duties performed while on detail will be aligned with existing duties and responsibilities and will be directly related to the position’s scope of work.

● As needed, staff is expected to support BHA’s hiring efforts and serve on PSC hiring committees. Training will be provided.

● The PSC may be expected to obtain an Agreement Officer's Representative (AOR) or Contracting Officer's Representative (COR) certification. The AOR/COR oversees agreements and/or contracts. This includes but is not limited to reviewing invoices, approvals, program/project deliverables (i.e. work plans, annual reports, month status reports), travel requests, key personnel requests, financial/budget reports, contractor performance evaluations, and compliance. More information about the AOR/COR responsibilities and related requirements can be found in the COR designation letter and the AOR designation letter. In the event that this role requires an AOR/COR certification, mandatory training will be provided

SUPERVISORY RELATIONSHIP:

The USPSC will take direction from and will report to the Health Team Lead or their designee.

SUPERVISORY CONTROLS: 

The supervisor provides administrative direction in terms of broadly defined missions or functions. USPSC independently plans, designs and carries out project, studies, and programs. Results of the work are considered technically authoritative. There is no higher level official technically responsible for administering the program/project.

12. PHYSICAL DEMANDS 

The work requested is primarily sedentary and does not involve undue physical demands. Work is primarily performed in an office setting.

During deployment on DARTs (if required), and during site visits, there may be some additional physical exertion including long periods of standing, walking over rough terrain, or carrying of moderately heavy items (less than 50 pounds). During deployment on DARTs (if required), and during site visits, the work may additionally involve special safety and/or security precautions, wearing of protective equipment, and exposure to severe weather conditions.

Qualifications

II. MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS REQUIRED FOR THIS POSITION 

EDUCATION/EXPERIENCE REQUIRED FOR THIS POSITION

(Determines basic eligibility for the position. Offerors who do not meet all of the education and experience factors are considered NOT qualified for the position.)

Bachelor’s degree in any discipline with an active U.S. Pharmacist license, and at least six (6) years of experience in pharmacist practice.

OR 

PharmD or Master's degree in any discipline with an active U.S. Pharmacist license, and at least four (4) years of experience in pharmacist practice.

Application instructions

SUBMITTING AN OFFER

1. Eligible Offerors are required to complete and submit the offer form AID 309-2, “Offeror Information for Personal Services Contracts with Individuals,” available at http://www.usaid.gov/forms.

2. Offers must be received by the closing date and time specified in Section I, item 3, and submitted to the Point of Contact in Section I.

3. Offeror submissions must clearly reference the Solicitation number on all offeror submitted documents.

4. Complete resume. In order to fully evaluate your offer, your resume must include:

(a) Paid and non-paid experience, job title, location(s), dates held (month/year), and hours worked per week for each position. Dates (month/year) and locations for all field experience must also be detailed. Any experience that does not include dates (month/year), locations, and hours per week will not be counted towards meeting the solicitation requirements.

(b) Specific duties performed that fully detail the level and complexity of the work.

(c) Education and any other qualifications including job-related training courses, job-related skills, or job-related honors, awards or accomplishments. Failure to identify an academic discipline will result in disqualification.

(d) U.S. Citizenship

(e) Optional: How did you hear about this opportunity? (SAM.gov, BHA Jobs, Career Fair, etc.).

Your resume must contain sufficient information to make a valid determination that you fully meet the experience requirements as stated in this solicitation. This information must be clearly identified in your resume. Failure to provide information sufficient to determine your qualifications for the position will result in loss of full consideration.

Additional documents submitted will not be accepted.

By submitting your offer materials, you certify that all of the information on and attached to the offer is true, correct, complete, and made in good faith. You agree to allow all information on and attached to the offer to be investigated. False or fraudulent information on or attached to your offer may result in you being eliminated from consideration for this position, or being terminated after award, and may be punishable by fine or imprisonment.

To ensure consideration of offers for the intended position, please reference the solicitation number on your offer, and as the subject line in any email.

5. NOTE: If the full security application package is not submitted within 30 days after the Office of Security determines eligibility, the offer may be rescinded. If a Secret security clearance is not obtained within nine months after offer acceptance, the offer may be rescinded. If Top Secret is required, and clearance is not obtained within nine months  - after award, USAID may terminate the contract at the convenience of the government. If Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) access is not obtained within nine months after Top Secret clearance is granted, USAID may terminate the contract at the convenience of the government.

6. NOTE: If the full medical clearance package is not submitted within two months after offer acceptance, the offer may be rescinded. If a Department of State medical clearance is not obtained; the offer may be rescinded.

7. NOTE REGARDING GOVERNMENT OBLIGATIONS FOR THIS SOLICITATION: This solicitation in no way obligates USAID to award a PSC contract, nor does it commit USAID to pay any cost incurred in the preparation and submission of the offer.