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The Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy Kuala Lumpur announces an open competition for organizations to submit proposals to carry out a program in Malaysia to further research violent extremism in Southeast Asia and to create linkages between academic institutions in SE Asia and researchers in the United States.

Countries in the East Asia and Pacific region (EAP) are increasingly focused on enhancing regional security. Transnational criminal organizations take advantage of porous borders and fragile rule of law to illegally traffic drugs, arms, people, and wildlife. While countries in EAP face a range of challenges in developing robust rule of law, commonalities provide the context for INL's regional rule of law programming. Interagency and international cooperation on cases remains limited. Corruption is pervasive in many countries in the region. Legal systems are overburdened, and professionals may not have the resources to address their caseloads fully. This project will pilot professional development opportunities for legal professionals in the first five years of their career. The project will focus on sustainable legal professional development for prosecutors, judges, and public defense attorneys involved in criminal cases in the proposed pilot country. In the second year of the project, the implementer will conduct an assessment of a proposed second country for expansion.

The Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Consulate General in Kolkata (PAS Kolkata) seeks proposals for a project titled "Youth for Peace: Follow-on Programming." The project will bring together young leaders from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, to understand the complex variables that affect peace and violence in their communities, identify best practices of conflict resolution and see themselves as key catalysts in the peace building process. Proposals should be based on the framework of an inaugural two-day workshop with a follow on two-day workshop after a span of two-three months, and a final Youth for Peace Summit. The focus of the first workshop will be on understanding cultural contexts, the empowerment of young people to think creatively about community resilience and causes of extremism, and the promotion of grassroots campaigns to challenge violent narratives. The second workshop will help participants identify and focus on topics of individual interest which may include, but not be limited to, best practices in building "online and offline" community resilience, creating successful social media campaigns, smartphone photography, film-making and interview techniques, boosting media literacy, develop critical thinking skills, and challenging narratives with empathy and humor. The grantee is encouraged to recruit private sector collaborations, i.e. with Microsoft and Facebook, to support breakout discussions on improving youth employment prospects and using technology to counter radicalization. The project year will culminate in a South Asia Youth for Peace Summit in Kolkata to showcase how young leaders are utilizing their diverse skill sets, knowledge and networks to effectively address persistent problems of today. The grantee will also create 5 short videos using content from the workshops to amplify messaging.

he United States Agency for International Development, Regional Development Mission for Asia (USAID/RDMA) is in the process of designing a new program to support microenterprise development in Lao PDR., including, but not limited to, agriculture sector. This is a Request for Information (RFI) which intends to provide public information to parties interested in USAID's support in the sector, as well as to collect any information and suggestions about the USAID's planned programming. Information collected is intended to help in the Mission's activity design and development for an intended future solicitation which is anticipated to be issued in the mid 2018. Requested Action: At this time, USAID is seeking responses to the questions of this RFI as detailed below. Please note USAID is not seeking technical or cost applications/proposals at this time. Responses to this RFI are voluntary and USAID will not pay respondents for any information provided in response to this RFI. If a future solicitation is issued, it will be announced on the Federal Business Opportunities website at www.fbo.gov or at www.grants.gov at a later date. Thank you for your assistance and interest in USAID programs. Sincerely, /s/ Gregory Wang Regional Agreement/Contracting Officer USAID/RDMA, Bangkok, Thailand

The Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB), U.S. Department of Labor announces the availability of approximately $6,000,000 total costs for up to three cooperative agreements of up to $2,000,000 total costs each to fund technical assistance projects to improve the capacity of labor stakeholders to better understand and address indicators of forced labor and labor trafficking. Each cooperative agreement will fund a project in a country to be proposed by the applicant. Applicants must propose a country covered in the DOL's Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor in accordance with the Trade and Development Act of 2000 or on the List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor as mandated by Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005. Proposals for working in the fisheries sector in the Asia-Pacific region will not be considered. In each country, the project should achieve the following outcomes: * Improved understanding of indicators of forced labor and labor trafficking * Improved monitoring of working conditions by labor stakeholders to identify and address indicators and incidents of forced labor and labor trafficking * Strengthened capacity of the labor inspectorate to address forced labor and labor trafficking. The duration of the project will be a maximum of 4 years (48 months) from the effective date of the award. Applicants may apply separately for cooperative agreements serving one or more of the countries listed above, up to a maximum of three applications, but may not combine proposals for more than one country in a single application. Each application should request no more than $2 million total costs in funding. For this FOA, DOL will make no more than one award per country.