Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for Advancing Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in Bangladesh | BAA 388 17 000002

Opportunity Information: Apply for BAA 388 17 000002

The Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) titled "Advancing Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in Bangladesh" is a USAID Bangladesh funding opportunity designed to attract Expressions of Interest (EoIs) for bold, practical, and scalable ideas that can significantly expand access to affordable, quality health services in Bangladesh. The opportunity is led by USAID Bangladesh's Office of Population, Health, Nutrition and Education (OPHNE) and is centered on finding "game changing" solutions that help Bangladesh move closer to universal health coverage, meaning more people can obtain needed health services without suffering financial hardship.

A central feature of the BAA is its emphasis on partnership and collaboration rather than a traditional top-down grant model. USAID is specifically inviting organizations and companies to work with the agency through a model of co-creation, co-design, co-investment, and ongoing collaboration. In practice, this means applicants are expected to bring strong ideas and capabilities to the table, and then jointly develop and refine interventions with USAID, with an eye toward real-world feasibility, measurable impact, and potential for scale.

The technical focus is on health financing, especially approaches that expand health insurance coverage and introduce other innovative financing mechanisms. USAID is looking for concepts that can be developed, tested, and then scaled up through the Smiling Sun (SS) health clinics, which represent an established platform within Bangladesh's NGO health service delivery landscape. By using Smiling Sun clinics as an implementation and learning platform, the BAA aims to pilot and expand financing solutions that improve access to safe, affordable, and high-quality care, while also addressing barriers that have historically limited coverage, utilization, and financial protection.

The opportunity is also explicitly aligned with the Government of Bangladesh's National Health Care Financing Strategy (2012-2032). This alignment signals that proposed solutions should not operate in isolation, but should fit within national priorities and be relevant to the country's longer-term financing and health system reform direction. Beyond simply increasing service use, the intent is to tackle key constraints within the existing NGO health delivery sector and the broader health financing sector, suggesting interest in solutions that can overcome structural bottlenecks such as affordability, risk pooling, payment systems, provider incentives, enrollment and retention challenges, and sustainable revenue models.

USAID highlights that it is particularly interested in opportunities that complement its broader strategic priorities. These include science, technology, and innovative partnerships (STIP), universal health coverage, and efforts to end preventable maternal and child deaths. The maternal and child health emphasis explicitly includes family planning and nutrition, so concepts that connect financing mechanisms to improved access and outcomes in these areas are likely to be especially relevant. The BAA also links this work to USAID's wider mission of helping end extreme poverty, reflecting the idea that catastrophic health spending and poor access to essential services can trap households in poverty, and that better health financing can improve both health and economic resilience.

From an administrative standpoint, the opportunity is listed under Funding Opportunity Number BAA 388 17 000002. It is categorized as "Other" for both the opportunity category and funding instrument type, which often signals flexible partnership mechanisms and a solicitation structure intended to bring in unconventional ideas and partners, not only standard nonprofit implementers. The funding activity category is Health, and the CFDA number is 98.001. Eligibility is listed as unrestricted, meaning a broad range of applicants may propose ideas, including nonprofits, private sector firms, and other entities capable of contributing innovative approaches and implementation strength.

The posting shows an original closing date of 2016-11-12 and a creation date of 2016-10-18. The award ceiling is listed as 90,000,000 (as presented in the source data), indicating the potential for substantial total funding depending on the number and size of awards and the specific partnership arrangements developed through the BAA process. The notice does not specify the expected number of awards in the provided extract, reinforcing that the mechanism may support multiple concepts or a portfolio of pilots that could later be scaled.

Overall, this BAA is best understood as a call for high-impact, scalable health financing innovations that can be tested and expanded through Smiling Sun clinics, closely tied to Bangladesh's national financing strategy and USAID's priorities around UHC, technology-enabled innovation, and maternal and child health outcomes. The strongest concepts would likely demonstrate a clear path from pilot to scale, credible collaboration and co-investment, and a concrete plan for improving financial protection and access to quality care within the realities of Bangladesh's health system.

• The Bangladesh USAID-Dhaka in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for Advancing Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in Bangladesh" 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 2016-10-18.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2016-11-12. (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 $90,000,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted.

Apply for BAA 388 17 000002

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