AfricaLink Services for USAID Activity Managers

If you are an activity manager for USAID, welcome! Whether you are a USAID employee, contractor, or partner representative, you've found the right page.

If you are not a USAID activity manager, you're still welcome! However, you may find some of the jargon below to be a bit confusing. Internally within USAID we organize our programs around strategic plans and objectives, and we talk about partnerships, activities, projects, and programs. These terms all have specific meanings within our organization. Feel free to read on. If you have questions, just ask!

AfricaLink is a support activity funded and housed within the Division of Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment (ANRE), Office of Sustainable Development, in the USAID Africa Bureau. There is one staff person, the AfricaLink Advisor, with an office in ANRE in Washington.

AfricaLink supports the work of ANRE staff in agriculture, the environment, and natural resource management. Within the overall Sustainable Development Office Strategic Plan, AfricaLink supports these objectives:

• Strategic Objective 3: Agriculture -- Improved agriculture policies, programs and strategies
• Strategic Objective 5: Environment/Natural Resource Management -- Progress accelerated in the development and spread of strategically-viable natural resource management systems.
• Special Support Objective: Effective tools, methods and approaches are adopted in improving applications of environmental procedures and strategies in missions' and Africans' programs

Where these objectives overlap with those of other USAID offices and overseas missions, AfricaLink services are available. Program officers and staff in USAID's Africa Missions are specifically encouraged to consider ways AfricaLink support might contribute to their ongoing activities.

Consider the relationship between ANRE and the SO3 (agriculture and the environment) Team of the USAID Regional Center for Southern Africa. AfricaLink regularly provides consultative services to the RCSA SO3 Team and to the Team's African partners, especially the Southern African Centre for Cooperation in Agricultural and Natural Resources Research and Training (SACCAR) in Gaborone and the World Conservation Union's Regional Office for Southern Africa (IUCN-ROSA) in Harare. The RCSA provides the funding for program implementation. ANRE provides funding for the consultative services of the AfricaLink Advisor.

The AfricaLink Advisor may be called upon to evaluate information technology proposals submitted to a USAID Africa Mission, assist in the drafting of statements of work, analyze technology requirements, or assess information technology program performance. If these sound like areas where you as a USAID activity manager might like assistance, please do contact us.

What about cases where a Mission's activities do not overlap closely with the strategic objectives of ANRE? Are services still available?

Yes! The USAID/AfricaLink Advisor is essentially a staff consultant assigned to ANRE by IRM's Consulting and Information Services (IRM/CIS) Division. The Program Technology Transfer (PTT) team within CIS provides both short- and long-term assistance to Missions in any program area. For further information, visit the IRM/CIS/PTT website. Access to this website is restricted to browsers within USAID's intranet.