Opportunity Information: Apply for PRE SOLICITATION
The Tunisia Resilience and Community Empowerment (TRACE) opportunity is a USAID/Tunisia pre-solicitation notice for a large, multi-year community development program aimed at reducing local drivers of instability and strengthening resilience to violent extremism. USAID anticipates making one five-year cooperative agreement, with funding subject to availability, up to a total ceiling of $49.7 million spread across the five-year period. This announcement is only an advance notice that a formal Request for Applications (RFA) is expected in the future; no applications are being accepted now, and USAID is not inviting questions or committing to issue an RFA or make an award.
At its core, TRACE is designed around a rigorous, community-based development model that puts community members in the lead, not just as beneficiaries but as active participants and decision-makers throughout the full project cycle. The program emphasizes amplifying the voices of underrepresented groups, specifically including women and youth in rural and peri-urban areas, and ensuring they have meaningful roles in identifying needs, setting priorities, designing interventions, managing implementation, and evaluating results. Rather than focusing on a single sector, TRACE is framed as cross-sectoral development that can support a wide range of activities aligned with USAID/Tunisia's broader development agenda, as long as those activities address underlying determinants of community well-being that can contribute to instability when neglected.
The opportunity lays out three primary objectives. First, it aims to strengthen community resilience, meaning communities are better able to cope with shocks, tensions, and pressures without escalating into conflict or becoming susceptible to extremist recruitment or influence. Second, it seeks to mitigate community vulnerabilities, with an emphasis on addressing the most salient local factors that increase risk of instability and violent extremism. Third, it intends to build the capacity of Tunisian partners so the approach can be sustained locally and replicated beyond the life of the award, signaling a strong focus on local ownership, institutional strengthening, and long-term continuation of successful community-led models.
Several cross-cutting principles are highlighted as central to how applicants would be expected to design and run the program. One is being targeted and flexible: activities should be geographically focused in the areas most vulnerable to instability and should directly address community-level drivers of conflict and violent extremism, while remaining adaptable as local conditions change. Another is Positive Youth Development, which frames youth not as a problem to manage but as assets to develop through pro-social engagement, leadership opportunities, supportive relationships, and pathways that build on their strengths in families, schools, peer groups, and community organizations. The program is also expected to follow USAID's Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (CLA) approach, meaning implementers should coordinate with others, test promising ideas quickly, learn from evidence and feedback, and adjust course to improve effectiveness and efficiency rather than rigidly following an initial plan.
Conflict sensitivity is treated as essential, not optional. TRACE interventions must be designed to avoid unintentionally creating or worsening social, economic, or political tensions, and they must account for how existing or emerging conflict dynamics could affect staff, partners, and the activities themselves. Implementers are expected to look for opportunities to reduce tensions where possible and ensure that assistance does not fuel grievances, exclusion, or perceptions of favoritism. In addition, the program must comply with USAID policy on "The Development Response to Violent Extremism," which generally requires that development programming be grounded in local context, focus on prevention and resilience, and address the conditions that can enable violent extremist influence.
From an eligibility and administrative standpoint, the notice lists the opportunity as discretionary funding through a cooperative agreement (not a contract), under a community development activity category and CFDA 98.001. Eligibility is described as unrestricted, meaning it is open to a broad range of entity types unless the eventual RFA adds clarifications or limitations. The funding opportunity is issued by the Agency for International Development through the Middle East Regional Platform (USAID-MERP), and it anticipates a single award.
Finally, the notice includes standard but important disclaimers: because this is pre-solicitation, USAID is not requesting applications now, will not consider unsolicited applications, and will not reimburse costs that organizations may choose to incur while preparing for a future competition. Interested parties are expected to wait for the full RFA for definitive guidance on program structure, geographic focus, application requirements, evaluation criteria, and submission deadlines.Apply for PRE SOLICITATION
- The Agency for International Development, Middle East Regional Platform USAID-MERP in the community development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Tunisia Resilience and Community Empowerment (TRACE)" 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 Feb 23, 2018.
- Applicants must submit their applications by This is a pre-solicitation notice. No applications are requested at this time.. (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 $49,700,000.00 in funding.
- The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
- Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.
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| Tunisia Resilience and Community Empowerment (TRACE) Apply for 72066418RFA00002 Funding Number: 72066418RFA00002 Agency: Agency for International Development, Middle East Regional Platform USAID-MERP Category: Community Development Funding Amount: $49,600,000 |
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