[Federal Register: April 26, 2007 (Volume 72, Number 80)]
[Notices]
[Page 20869-20870]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr26ap07-80]
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DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Office of the Secretary
Combating Exploitive Child Labor Through Education
AGENCY: Bureau of International Labor Affairs, U.S. Department of
Labor.
ACTION: Notice of intent to solicit cooperative agreement applications.
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SUMMARY: The U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL), Bureau of International
Labor Affairs (ILAB), intends to obligate approximately U.S. $54
million to support cooperative agreement awards to organizations to
address exploitive child labor internationally. ILAB intends to award,
through a competitive and merit-based process, cooperative agreements
to organizations to develop and implement formal, non-formal, and
vocational education projects as a means to combat exploitive child
labor in the following ten countries: (1) Democratic Republic of the
Congo, (2) Uganda, (3) Togo, (4) Colombia, (5) Bolivia, (6) Dominican
Republic, (7) Indonesia, (8) Morocco, (9) the Philippines, and (10)
Cambodia. ILAB intends to fund projects that focus on innovative ways
to provide educational services to children engaged, or at risk of
engaging, in exploitive labor. The projects should address the gaps and
challenges to basic education found in the countries mentioned above.
ILAB
[[Page 20870]]
also intends to award a cooperative agreement to an organization(s) to
conduct research on exploitive child labor and forced labor in the
carpet sectors of Nepal, Pakistan, and India. ILAB intends to solicit
cooperative agreement applications from qualified organizations (i.e.,
any commercial, international, educational, or non-profit organization
capable of successfully developing and implementing child labor and/or
research projects) to implement these projects. Please refer to http://www.dol.gov/ILAB/grants/main.htm
for examples of previous notices of
availability of funds and solicitations for cooperative agreement
applications.
Information on the specific sectors, geographical regions, and
funding levels for the potential projects in the countries listed above
will be addressed in a solicitation(s) for cooperative agreement
applications to be published prior to September 30, 2007. Potential
applicants should not submit inquiries to USDOL for further information
on these award opportunities until after USDOL's publication of the
solicitations. For a list of frequently asked questions on
Solicitations for Cooperative Agreement Applications, please visit
http://www.dol.gov/ILAB/faq/faq36.htm.
USDOL intends to hold a bidders' meeting on June 14, 2007, to
answer questions potential applicants may have on this Solicitation for
Cooperative Agreement process. Please see below for more information on
the bidders' meeting.
DATES: Key Dates: Specific solicitations for cooperative agreement
applications will be published in the Federal Register and remain open
for at least 30 days from the date of publication. All cooperative
agreement awards will be made on or before September 30, 2007.
ADDRESSES: Submission Address: Applications, in response to
solicitations published in the Federal Register, must be delivered to:
U.S. Department of Labor, Procurement Services Center, 200 Constitution
Avenue, NW., Room S-4306, Attention: Lisa Harvey, Washington, DC,
20210.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms. Lisa Harvey. E-mail address:
harvey.lisa@dol.gov. All inquiries should make reference to the USDOL
Combating Child Labor Through Education--Solicitations for Cooperative
Agreement Applications.
Bidders' Meeting: A bidders' meeting is scheduled to be held in
Washington, DC, at the Department of Labor on Thursday, June 14, 2007,
from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. The purpose of this meeting is to provide
potential applicants with the opportunity to ask questions concerning
this Solicitation for Cooperative Agreement process. To register for
the meeting, please call or e-mail Ms. Doris Senko (Phone: 202-693-
4843; E-mail: senko.doris@dol.gov) by June 1, 2007. Please provide Ms.
Senko with contact information including name, organization, address,
phone number, and e-mail address of the attendees.
Background Information: Since 1995, USDOL has supported technical
cooperation programming to combat exploitive child labor
internationally through the promotion of educational opportunities for
children-in-need. In total, the U.S. Congress has appropriated to USDOL
over U.S. $595 million to support activities to combat exploitive child
labor internationally. In turn, ILAB has signed cooperative agreements
with various organizations to support international technical
assistance projects to combat abusive child labor in over 75 countries
around the world.
USDOL international programming to combat exploitive child labor
through education seeks to nurture the development, health, safety, and
enhanced future employability of children around the world by
withdrawing or preventing children from involvement in exploitive labor
and providing them with access to basic education, vocational training
and other services. Eliminating exploitive child labor depends, in
part, on improving access to, quality of, and relevance of educational
and training opportunities for children under 18 years of age. Without
improving such opportunities, children withdrawn from exploitive forms
of labor may not have viable alternatives to child labor and may be
more likely to return to such work or resort to other hazardous means
of subsistence.
International projects funded by USDOL to combat exploitive child
labor seek to:
1. Withdraw or prevent children from involvement in exploitive
child labor through the provision of direct educational and training
services;
2. Strengthen policies on child labor and education, the capacity
of national institutions to combat child labor, and formal and
transitional education systems that encourage working children and
those at risk of working to attend school;
3. Raise awareness of the importance of education for all children
and mobilize a wide array of actors to improve and expand education
infrastructures
4. Support research and the collection of reliable data on child
labor; and
5. Ensure the long-term sustainability of these efforts.
When working to eradicate exploitive child labor, USDOL strives to
complement existing efforts, to build on the achievements of and
lessons learned from these efforts, to expand impact and build
synergies among actors, and to avoid duplication of resources and
efforts.
Signed at Washington, DC, this 20th day of April, 2007.
Lisa Harvey,
Grant Officer.
[FR Doc. E7-7962 Filed 4-25-07; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4510-28-P