From Sub to USAID Prime: What We Learned Along the Way

USAID recently published an article highlighting Proximity’s journey from a subcontractor to the prime implementer on multiple USAID contracts.

The article prompted us to reflect on what we have learned – and what insight we can share with other small businesses thinking about taking this step. We distilled this experience into four suggestions.

Doing It Differently

There is no single path small businesses have to follow to receive prime contracts. In fact, their ability to be creative is the primary advantage of small businesses.

In Proximity’s case, we started out by providing an innovative solution to an urgent problem. Ongoing violence and volatility in Syria was preventing the collection and dissemination of timely, high-quality data. This was, in turn, limiting the effectiveness of monitoring and evaluation of humanitarian and stabilization programs. The situation was also revealing the limitations of relying on subcontracted third-party monitors; existing data-collection agencies in Syria were vastly overstretched – and overreliance on them was creating information echo chambers.

We offered a new approach to address this challenge. Rather than relying on extant data-collection firms, we directly recruited, trained, and managed our own team of researchers inside the country. As we progressively expanded these teams across Syrian communities, we were able to provide new data sets that were unbiased and directly quality assured. We consequently emerged as a go-to research firm in Syria (the location of our first prime contracts).

By the time we started bidding on USAID prime contracts in Syria, we could could conduct research as effectively – if not more so – than any large implementer operating in Syria.

Playing to Small Business Strengths

It’s hard for small businesses to compete in the same game as big-brand suppliers. But they don’t have to; there’s more than one game in town! Rather than trying to measure up against their bigger counterparts, small businesses should focus instead on the advantages their size offers.

For instance, while small businesses cannot draw on the same scale of headquarter resources as big companies, they can offer stress-tested, in-country platforms and highly local capacity. In complex delivery environments, these assets can prove much more important than the scale of backstopping. In Proximity’s case, we had years of experience in Syria conducting the operational legwork for big implementers, including hiring and managing large-scale management and research teams on the ground. This experience demonstrated our ability to perform in the environment – in a way that even the large implementers were unable without support. Crucially, this experience also showed that we could carefully manage the risk of operating in such a fragile and hostile setting. Like many small businesses, Proximity has a high tolerance for risk because we are close to that risk; we intimately understand the contexts and threats amidst which we work, ensuring we don’t expose our teams to danger.

Additionally, small businesses can usually offer richer contextual insight than their large competitors. Not only are they typically more locally embedded, but small businesses are also able to disseminate learning more effectively across their organizations, meaning that data from previous projects can be more distilled into insight for future ones. This is crucial for effective delivery, but it can also be a key asset during bidding processes. For our Syria contracts, for instance, we did not have limitless human and financial resources to throw at proposals, but we had been carefully learning from years of in-country delivery. And, just as this degree of knowledge had previously rendered us an invaluable partner for large implementing partners working inside Syria, it now allowed us to demonstrate to USAID that we possessed a unique level of insight in the country.

Small businesses can also offer more nimble, adaptive delivery. This allows them to launch quickly and turn the ship around when necessary – a characteristic that is particularly important in volatile humanitarian and development contexts. Proximity was able to show a strong record of agility. We had, for instance, been brought on as a subcontractor under the USAID Syria Humanitarian Monitoring Platform to provide data collection and field services across Syria. We were able to quickly mobilize our component by leveraging our deep network of data-collection specialists and drawing on our flexible FIELD 360 remote-training approach. In short order, we had recruited, trained, and fielded an expansive team for a multi-year monitoring and evaluation program.

Embracing Support

Small businesses don’t have to “go it alone” on prime contracts. Proximity obtained its first prime contracts through USAID's small business set-asides. For each of these contracts, we brought on subs with extensive thematic experience and long track records of working successfully with USAID. This has allowed us to benefit from their experiences whilst we navigate the new territory of being a prime.

Just as important, USAID is not just a donor – it’s also a partner. Since winning our prime awards, USAID has been extremely supportive, encouraging us to ask questions and helping to jointly iterate our programming. They recognize that they are working with a small business and are supporting us as we deliver on the contract. And, just as they are teaching us to work with them more effectively, we are helping them to work with small businesses.

Cleaning House

Finally, before small companies or organizations even consider working with USAID, they need to focus on two key prerequisites. Firstly, they have to make a deliberate effort to first get their operations and finance houses in order. They have to be confident they have the necessary systems in place to comply with USAID’s robust requirements. Secondly, they need to take the time to get to know their client. USAID is very supportive, but it takes time to learn about the institution and get a feel for its pulse.

Going from subcontractor to prime awardee is a big step, but once businesses have cleared the administrative hurdles and begin to understand USAID, the process becomes much easier.

Digital Platforms to Counter Violent Extremism Among Youth: Do they work?

This article is published as part of AP’s work in support of the Youth, Peace and Security agenda, as defined by UN Security Council Resolution 2250 (2015).

This article discusses the role of digital interventions in building youth agency to prevent violent extremism in Jordan. In presenting the specific experience of Proximity International, we want to answer three main questions: does the provision of digital platforms for preventing extremism really provide an enabling environment for greater youth agency? Which participant selection criteria increase the effectiveness of similar digital projects? Finally, is it possible to assess the effectiveness of short-term interventions on instilling behavioural change among their participants?

Violent extremism is not new in Jordan. Since the mid-nineties, the country has been affiliated with Salafist Jihadi ideology. The Arab Spring and the outbreak of conflict in Iraq and Syria has also provided Salafi Jihadists with the opportunity to recruit new members and spread their ideas across the region. However, the profiles of people who tend to engage in extremist groups vary across Jordan. In and around Amman, extremism draws the middle and lower classes as well as educated groups including students and school teachers. However, in rural Zarqa, extremists come from poor socioeconomic backgrounds with no university education and work. Reportedly, family, friends, prison mates and club acquaintances remain the primary targets of radicalization. Nowadays, as 88% of Jordanians have a Facebook account, the Internet provides those who are already radicalized with improved access to extremist ideas and facilitates networking with extremist recruiters.

Responding to this new dynamic, many programmes designed to prevent violent extremism have recently shifted their focus to digital platforms and virtual communities. This was the case with a project that Proximity International recently evaluated, which aimed to engage youth in Jordan through the creation of alternative media content (such as YouTube videos, articles and social media posts) to promote a culture of peace. As small-scale project, it initially aimed to target beneficiaries below 30 years of age including those from most vulnerable socio-economic backgrounds. Beneficiaries were selected through an online application process promoted through social media platforms, paid Facebook ads and word of mouth. Applications were evaluated based on people’s motivation, availability, and the distance between their place of residence and the project location. Afterwards, over a period of several months, selected participants received training in skills like research, creative writing and video production as well as coaching in hate-speech identification. Interactive workshops included learning about peaceful coexistence-related concepts (such as tolerance or diversity). Mentors from Proximity International ensured that all participants could access support and receive advice after the training. 

The evaluation of the project provided an opportunity for learning about the challenges faced by small initiatives that focus on digital narratives in Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE)’s rapidly evolving environment. It found, for example, that the initiative succeeded in unlocking the way young people see their own agency, as well as their capacity to act independently and to make free choices. It did so through interactive trainings centred around a learning-by-doing approach and in-depth discussions combined with mentorship offered for a month or longer. This allowed participants to experience personal growth that positively impacted their self-esteem, confidence and sometimes leveraged their social status. The fact that participants had to apply their new skills to develop digital content seemed to be crucial in unleashing their enthusiasm as well as increasing their critical thinking abilities. 

However, while the vertical (mentors-to-participants) and horizontal (participants-to-participants) relations contributed to increased engagement and agency of thought amongst the youth who participated in the project, the digital platform itself did not play an important role in the long-term, even though it had the potential to do so. The main obstacle was the limited reach of the project’s website and the absence of an outreach tracking system. As a result, participants felt “unheard’’, which led to frustration. The information we collected also suggests s that this outcome of frustration, an often unexplored, under-evaluated and unintended impact of a PVE project such as this, is likely to add to perceived political and social exclusion in the long-term.

The evaluation also provided an opportunity to explore the relation between participant selection and the effectiveness of digital projects. Proximity believes that the effectiveness of PVE projects focusing on producing digital content goes hand in hand with the level of participants’ technical skills. In short-term interventions, the prioritization of technical skills in writing or media production over socio-economic vulnerabilities seems to be a more effective strategy to participants’ selection. Tech-savvy youth who do not require technical training to start producing online content are likely to have greater individual contribution in a short timeframe given that they embrace newly acquired concepts and reflect them in their digital work. The key question, however, is: will they produce PVE content after the project finishes if they experience difficulties such as unemployment? In this case, low socio-economic vulnerability may in some cases increase the likelihood, but not ensure, that they continue their work after the end of the project.

Furthermore, it is important to differentiate between internal and external project effectiveness. While technical selection criteria may increase the former  (i.e. a project delivering outputs), the latter depends on how the project ensures that those who search for radical content online will stumble upon the alternative peaceful narratives produced by the project, and whether those messages will appeal to them. Importantly, preventing violent extremism and promoting peaceful coexistence is not the same. While these are beyond the scope of this current article, they merit further inquiry for PVE projects in general. 

Lastly, in regards to measuring the effectiveness of short-term interventions, this project strived to instil change at two levels: firstly, increase the level of critical thinking among participants to empower them to produce powerful content to counter violent extremism; and secondly, achieve a similar result amongst the external audience as a reaction to being exposed to the produced content. While assessing the change in opinions, attitudes and behaviours among the participants is difficult, measuring it amongst the external audience is a Sisyphean task because of the way young people are bombarded by new media content. In long-term interventions, longitudinal monitoring frameworks measuring changes in the aspects outlined above are indeed the best approach. However, in short-term projects like the one Proximity evaluated, several recall techniques allowed us to capture the participants’ perceptions retrospectively. This was helpful to identify results, but it also carries a risk of respondents’ bias. Whenever possible, we strongly advocate for having a baseline and endline assessments to better capture any such change.

In conclusion, there is a lack of consensus on what the exact push and pull factors attracting youth to violent extremism are, or at least, lack of agreement on their hierarchy of importance. While social media facilitates spreading Salafist Jihadi ideology in Jordan, this evaluation did not find evidence on how effective this specific project was in reaching and impacting those who would otherwise be exposed to violent online narratives. Acknowledging a positive impact of a participatory training modality on creating youth agency, Proximity believes that digital platforms can support this outcome, but only when accompanied by well-developed target audience criteria, and the monitoring of outreach and the viewer’s reaction. In order for this youth agency to be sustainable, participants must know that their messages are heard. They must have channels to express themselves after the project ends, which may be secured by networking project participants with existing similar grassroots initiatives, as an exit strategy. We also believe that prioritizing tech-savvy participants with low socio-economic vulnerability may increase the internal programme effectiveness and increase the sustainability of the project efforts. As for measuring behavioural change, this will ultimately require more time—monitoring and evaluation efforts should therefore take note of this and be designed accordingly.

Protection Series Part 1 | A Working Analytical Framework

As research interacts with the humanitarian and development sphere, some effort has been made to harmonize core theoretical concepts between the two such as gender and conflict sensitivity and participatory approaches. While gender sensitive and participatory frameworks seek to ensure that local perspectives-- particularly those which have been historically marginalized-- are heard and incorporated into research and humanitarian activities, conflict sensitivity encourages implementers to think about how their activities impact target communities. Further, as a response to the fact that research is too often an extractive, top-down process, a clear push towards participatory approaches has emerged in recent years. This means there are efforts to ensure that local communities play a larger role in designing and executing project activities.

While the notion of protection has been foregrounded in humanitarian and development circles in recent years, only bits and pieces of the concept have been incorporated into research practices. This is particularly true when research activities, often led by scholars and practitioners from the global North, are executed in remote and fragile settings.

What is Protection in Research?

“Protection,” as understood in the humanitarian field, is defined as “activities aimed at obtaining full respect for the right of all individuals, without discrimination, in accordance with the relevant bodies of law” (Global Protection Cluster 2016). According to the Global Protection Cluster (2016) “Protection” encompasses four themes which should be applied across all humanitarian programming:

1. Prioritizing safety and dignity and avoiding harm: Aid interventions should both seek to promote the physical safety and well-being of participants, and ensure that the aid process doesn’t expose participants to further risk.

2. Meaningful access: Assistance should be provided without discrimination and in proportion to need, with particular attention paid to individuals or groups who may be marginalized because of race, class, gender, age, or disability.

3. Accountability: Programs should be managed and delivered in a transparent manner, with appropriate feedback and complaints mechanisms available to beneficiaries.

4. Participation and empowerment: Affected communities should be involved in shaping the design and administration of aid.

While concepts like Do No Harm and non-discrimination have been cornerstone ethical principles of sociological research for more than a century, surprisingly little work has been done to systematically integrate the four Protection principles into contemporary research activities. How then can we incorporate protection principles into research activities conducted in fragile and remote environments?

On the one hand, protection-related issues like safety, access, inclusivity and participation should be worked into the design of a research exercise. Practical steps-- like conferring about sociopolitical dynamics with journalists or local NGOs, can be taken to ensure that the perspectives of women and elderly are included in a context analysis; field researchers can be instructed to conduct interviews in spaces where vulnerable participants feel safe during the implementation phase. In the subsequent posts these technical activities are referred to as the “programmatic” level of a research process.

However, research does not exist purely in the realm of programmatic choices. Research is an inherently social process in which interpersonal interactions occur at a micro level between participants, researchers, translators, field teams and institutional funders (Celestina, 2018). Instilling a Protection-lens to the social level of research is less a function of specific technical guidance. Rather, it requires active critical reflection on how power dynamics between different actors affect the process of research. Throughout the research process, the four Protection principles should be upheld both on a programmatic level and on a social level.

But what does this mean in practical terms?

The following post will examine how protection can be incorporated into the Context Analysis stage of research at both the programmatic and social levels.