Leveraging Local Capacity to Strengthen Health Service Delivery Project | 72061219APS00001

Opportunity Information: Apply for 72061219APS00001

The Leveraging Local Capacity to Strengthen Health Service Delivery Project is a USAID/Malawi funding opportunity designed to improve health outcomes in Malawi by strengthening the ability of local organizations to plan, deliver, and sustain health and social welfare services. Framed as an Annual Program Statement (APS), it signals that USAID is looking to support multiple activities that align with a broad development goal rather than funding a single narrowly defined project. The central purpose is to advance USAID strategic health priorities in Malawi while also supporting the country’s broader journey to self-reliance by shifting more implementation responsibility to Malawian partners and institutions.

The opportunity is anchored around three major health objectives that reflect USAID’s core priorities: preventing child and maternal deaths, combating infectious diseases, and achieving HIV epidemic control. In practical terms, this means USAID is seeking programs that can measurably reduce preventable deaths among mothers and children, strengthen prevention and treatment for infectious diseases, and accelerate progress toward controlling HIV as a public health threat. Although the APS language is high-level, the emphasis on “health service delivery” and “social welfare programming” indicates interest in interventions that improve the quality, coverage, and reliability of services people receive, as well as the enabling systems that support those services, such as community engagement, referral networks, and coordination between health and social support structures.

USAID plans to fund these activities through cooperative agreements, which typically involve a more hands-on partnership between the donor and the implementing organization than a standard grant. Under a cooperative agreement, the recipient leads implementation, but USAID expects to have substantial involvement in areas like technical direction, coordination, learning, and ensuring alignment with national priorities and USAID strategy. The opportunity sits in the health funding activity category under CFDA 98.001 and is administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development mission in Malawi (USAID-Lilongwe), indicating it is part of USAID’s overseas assistance portfolio.

In terms of scale and competitiveness, the APS lists an award ceiling of $7.5 million and anticipates making up to eight awards. That suggests USAID intends to support several partners or initiatives, potentially covering different geographies, service delivery platforms, or technical focus areas within the broader objectives. The opportunity was created on August 14, 2019, with an original closing date of August 13, 2020, which establishes the window during which USAID accepted applications or concept submissions under this APS framework.

Eligibility is described broadly as “Others,” with additional eligibility clarification referenced in the full APS text. This kind of eligibility category is commonly used when an agency wants to encourage a wide range of applicants but may prioritize or set conditions for local entities, partnerships, or specific organizational types. Given the explicit emphasis on advancing Malawi’s self-reliance through local partner engagement, the solicitation strongly signals a preference for locally led implementation, capacity strengthening, and approaches that build durable Malawian institutional capability rather than relying primarily on external implementers.

Overall, this opportunity is best understood as an investment in locally driven health service delivery improvements in Malawi, with the dual aim of achieving concrete public health results (maternal and child survival, infectious disease control, and HIV epidemic control) while building the long-term capacity of Malawian organizations to manage and sustain health and social welfare programming.

• The Agency for International Development, Malawi USAID-Lilongwe in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Leveraging Local Capacity to Strengthen Health Service Delivery Project" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 98.001.
• This funding opportunity was created on Aug 14, 2019.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Aug 13, 2020 N/A. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $7,500,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 8 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

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