Originally published June 2020 as a tender alert. Repurposed Jun 27, 2026 into an evergreen reference following the dismantlement of USAID.
Editor’s Note, June 2026
The U.S. Agency for International Development ceased implementing foreign assistance on July 1, 2025, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that USAID’s remaining programs would be absorbed into the State Department. The agency, founded in 1961, is expected to formally disband in September 2026. More than 80% of its programs were terminated in the months leading up to the closure. This piece, originally published in June 2020 as a notice of a USAID/Bosnia and Herzegovina communications tender, is preserved here as a record of how USAID procured public relations and communications services through the end of its independent operation.
For sixty-four years, USAID was one of the largest single buyers of public relations and communications services in the U.S. federal government. The agency ran more than sixty country and regional missions and managed thousands of programs that required local-language video production, infographics, media relations, social media amplification, and event photography in markets where the State Department needed an American voice on the ground.
The firms that won the work were a specific tier of the industry. Worth understanding why.
What USAID actually bought
The communications scope inside a typical USAID mission contract was wider than most commercial PR briefs. The June 2020 Bosnia and Herzegovina solicitation that originally ran on this page is a representative example. The agency wanted: twelve sixty-second videos, two longer ten-minute features, ten infographics, twenty-five media placements, a forty-post organic social program, thirty-six paid boosts, and twenty photography assignments — all bilingual in English and the local language, all closed-captioned, all delivered against a Contracting Officer’s Representative reviewing every asset.
That breadth was standard. USAID was not buying a campaign. It was buying an in-country communications operation.
The structure that defined USAID communications contracts
Four features showed up in nearly every tender.
Mission-level procurement. USAID country missions ran their own communications procurement under the Bureau for Foreign Assistance framework, with the Office of Acquisition and Assistance at the mission level managing the contract. Sarajevo bought differently from Nairobi, which bought differently from Manila. The work was decentralized by design.
Bilingual delivery, every asset. English plus the local language, every time. Sarajevo wanted Bosnian. Kyiv wanted Ukrainian. Bogotá wanted Spanish. The translation infrastructure was part of the contract, not a sub.
Multi-channel deliverables, single contractor. Video, infographics, media relations, social, paid boosts, and photography in one award. The contracting officer wanted one accountable party, not a marketing stack to coordinate.
Public-sector accountability. Every deliverable reviewed and approved by a Contracting Officer’s Representative. Public funds, public reporting, public scrutiny. The firms that won were the ones built to operate under that level of oversight.
Who won the work
USAID communications procurement was dominated by a specific tier of firms.
The development-implementer giants — Chemonics, DAI, Tetra Tech, FHI 360, Creative Associates — won the largest packages, often as part of broader development contracts where communications was one workstream among many.
The federal-PR specialists — Burson Cohn & Wolfe’s public-sector practice, Edelman’s public affairs work, APCO Worldwide’s international division, Ketchum’s Washington operation — won the standalone communications awards where the brief was strictly outreach.
The local specialists — Sarajevo-based, Nairobi-based, Manila-based agencies operating in-country — won the small awards directly and acted as subcontractors on the larger ones. The local-language requirement and the in-country execution made them necessary.
The boutique federal contractors — smaller firms registered on SAM.gov, holding the right clearances and certifications — picked up the mid-tier awards that the giants would not bid and the locals could not deliver alone.
Why these contracts mattered to PR firms
Three reasons the work was valuable beyond the fee.
Durable revenue. USAID communications contracts typically ran twelve to thirty-six months with option periods. The work was predictable in a way commercial PR rarely is.
Public-sector credentialing. A USAID contract was a procurement credential that opened doors at the State Department, the Department of Defense’s outreach offices, USIP, MCC, and the foundation world. The certifications and clearances required to win one transferred to the next federal opportunity.
International footprint. Firms that won USAID awards built operating experience in markets where commercial PR work was thin. That experience became salable to multinational corporate clients entering the same markets.
What replaced it
The State Department announced on July 1, 2025 that “foreign assistance programs that align with administration policies — and which advance American interests — will be administered by the State Department.” The Department’s Bureau of Global Public Affairs, Bureau of International Information Programs, and the regional bureaus have absorbed a portion of the outreach work USAID previously ran. The procurement structure has changed materially. The State Department’s communications procurement is more centralized in Washington, narrower in country-level autonomy, and tighter in scope than USAID’s was.
For PR firms that built USAID-facing practices, the work has consolidated, narrowed, and moved. The development-implementer giants have lost the largest single client in their revenue base. The local-language specialists in country missions have lost their primary U.S.-government customer. The federal-PR generalists have a shrunken opportunity set tied to whichever programs the State Department chooses to continue funding under the America First foreign-assistance framework.
The original USAID procurement model — mission-level, bilingual, multi-channel, multi-year — is gone.
What the record shows
The 2020 Bosnia and Herzegovina tender preserved on this page was one of thousands of communications procurements USAID ran in its final years of independent operation. The deliverables, the structure, and the contracting discipline are useful as a reference for how a federal communications buyer at that scale actually bought.
Whether anything resembling that model returns will depend on how Congress, the State Department, and the next administrations decide to structure U.S. communications work overseas. For now, the procurement era this piece originally documented has ended.
