Power Africa Healthcare Facility Electrification Activity (HFE) | 720 674 21 R 00022

Opportunity Information: Apply for 720 674 21 R 00022

USAID Power Africa's "Healthcare Facility Electrification Activity (HFE)" notice is a Request for Information (RFI), not a funding competition. In plain terms, the U.S. Government is using this announcement to gather ideas, market intelligence, and practical recommendations that could shape a future program. It is not a Request for Proposals (RFP) or Request for Applications (RFA), it does not promise an award, and responding does not provide any advantage in any later solicitation. The opportunity is managed out of USAID Pretoria (South Africa), is open to unrestricted respondents, and is framed under broad "Other" categories rather than a traditional grant program format.

The core development problem driving the RFI is the lack of affordable, reliable electricity across sub-Saharan Africa and how that directly undermines health service delivery. USAID highlights that unreliable power affects everything from the quality of clinical care to the storage and distribution of medicines and vaccines, and even the ability to retain and motivate healthcare workers. COVID-19 made the stakes more visible: diagnosis, treatment (including oxygen therapy), reporting, and vaccine deployment all depend on dependable electricity. USAID cites WHO statistics to underscore the scale of the challenge: roughly one in four health facilities lack electricity entirely, only about one-third of hospitals have reliable power, and cold-chain disruptions contribute to major vaccine wastage (with particularly high losses for freeze-dried vaccines and significant losses for liquid vaccines). Facilities without power and communications are described as "blind and mute" because they struggle to diagnose and transmit case reports to central authorities.

Power Africa positions this as an expansion of work it has already tested through its Off-Grid Program. The RFI references approximately $2.6 million in prior grant funding used to electrify 275 clinics across nine countries: Nigeria, Togo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Zambia, Rwanda, Malawi, Mozambique, and Ghana. Those early efforts used a range of business and financing models and were intended, in part, to generate lessons and data that can guide larger USAID investments. The anticipated next step described here is a much bigger, broader activity that scales beyond pilot-style grants and supports cost-competitive approaches.

A central feature of the concept is building a public-private "Alliance" to accelerate health facility modernization, not only for electricity but also telecommunications and water services. USAID is explicitly interested in leveraging its own resources alongside private capital and partner resources to achieve large-scale deployment. The Alliance could include private companies, NGOs, foundations, governments, and other stakeholders with relevant expertise, commercial interests, geographic reach, or networks. The emphasis is on sustainable, clean generation options and on models that can be replicated and expanded over multiple years, rather than one-off installations. USAID invites innovative approaches to governance, financing, and service delivery, recognizing that the biggest constraints are often not purely technical but also institutional and commercial.

To shape this possible future activity, USAID asks respondents to weigh in on the overall viability of the Alliance idea and to answer, as relevant, a set of planning questions. These questions cover: who might partner and why; what other organizations are already active in this space; whether similar alliances already exist and what gaps remain; and what value USAID could add to an existing ecosystem. USAID also probes what it would take to attract private sector investment at meaningful scale, including what enabling conditions are needed, what time horizons make sense for a long-term public-private effort, and how to structure leverage (cash, in-kind, and organizational support). Another theme is how to mobilize corporate social responsibility dollars and, separately, how to encourage investments tied to viable business models.

Policy and implementation mechanics are another major focus. USAID asks how to leverage government and donor health-sector resources, what country-level policies are necessary to enable wide rollout, and which financial mechanisms and tools could support a multi-partner, multi-country alliance. Respondents are also asked to identify where need and potential are greatest across sub-Saharan Africa and what prioritization innovations could help an Alliance decide where to start and how to sequence expansion.

On the operational side, USAID is looking for ideas about technologies and approaches that can work reliably over the long term, including monitoring and performance management. The RFI specifically flags issues like securing high-value equipment (power systems, communications gear, and storage/cold-chain assets), and setting up systems to track supply chains, construction quality, commissioning, and real-time performance data such as generation output, consumption, and battery health. USAID also asks how success should be defined and measured, what private-sector partners would seek to achieve through participation, what barriers currently keep private investors out of health facility electrification, and what additional benefits clinics might realize beyond improved clinical services (for example, stronger data/reporting capacity, staff retention improvements, expanded service hours, or community-level spillover benefits).

Administrative details reinforce that this is strictly an information-gathering exercise. USAID states it will not pay for responses, may use the information without restriction, and advises against submitting proprietary material. Responses were capped at 10 to 15 pages, single-spaced, Times New Roman 12-point, including annexes and footnotes, and organizations were allowed to answer only the questions most relevant to them. The submission deadline was 5:00 pm Eastern Time on May 17, 2021, submitted by email to pretoriaapplications@usaid.gov with the specified subject line referencing RFI No. 720-674-21-R-00022. Power Africa also held an information session on May 5, 2021 via Zoom to let interested parties ask clarifying questions and better understand USAID's planning goals.

Overall, the HFE RFI signals that USAID Power Africa was preparing to move from relatively small-scale clinic electrification grants toward a larger, investment-oriented platform aimed at modernizing health facilities across sub-Saharan Africa. The key idea is to use an alliance model to blend USAID support with private capital and partner capabilities to deliver reliable, affordable, clean power (plus telecom and water where relevant), improve health outcomes and resilience, and strengthen the infrastructure needed for vaccine delivery and broader health system performance.

• The South Africa USAID-Pretoria in the other sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Power Africa Healthcare Facility Electrification Activity (HFE)" 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 2021-03-31.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2021-05-17. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted.

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