[Federal Register Volume 73, Number 68 (Tuesday, April 8, 2008)]
[Notices]
[Pages 19103-19104]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E8-7231]


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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 USD 21 million 
to support cooperative agreement awards to organizations to address 
exploitive child labor and forced 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 five countries: Guinea, Jordan, 
Madagascar, Nicaragua, and Yemen. ILAB intends to fund projects that 
focus on withdrawing and preventing children who are engaged in, or at 
risk of engaging in, exploitive child labor through the provision of 
direct educational services. The projects should propose innovative 
ways to provide these educational services to target populations and 
address the gaps and challenges to basic education found in the 
countries mentioned above. ILAB also intends to award a cooperative 
agreement to an organization(s) to conduct research on forced labor in 
selected countries to be determined. ILAB intends to solicit 
cooperative agreement applications from qualified organizations (i.e., 
any commercial, international, educational, or non-profit organization, 
including any faith-based, community-based, or public international 
organizations(s), capable of successfully developing and implementing 
child labor 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, 2008. Potential 
applicants should not submit inquiries to USDOL for further information 
on these award opportunities until after USDOL's publication of the

[[Page 19104]]

solicitations. For a list of frequently asked questions on 
Solicitations for Cooperative Agreement Applications (based on last 
year's solicitations, SGAs 07-10 and 07-11), please visit http://www.dol.gov/ilab/faq/faq0710.htm.
    Key Dates: The forthcoming solicitation(s) for cooperative 
agreement applications will be published on http://www.grants.gov and 
USDOL/ILAB's Web site. A brief synopsis of the solicitation(s) for 
cooperative agreement applications (SGA) and Web site links to the 
full-text SGAs will be published in the Federal Register. The SGA will 
remain open for at least 30 days from the date of publication. All 
cooperative agreement awards will be made on or before September 30, 
2008.
    Submission Information: Applications in response to the forthcoming 
solicitation must be submitted via http://www.grants.gov. Any 
application sent by mail or other delivery services, e-mail, telegram, 
or facsimile (Fax) will not be accepted.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms. Lisa Harvey. E-mail address: 
[email protected]. All inquiries should make reference to the USDOL 
Combating Child Labor through Education--Solicitations for Cooperative 
Agreement Applications.
    Bidders' Meeting: USDOL intends to hold a bidders' meeting on April 
24, 2008, in Washington, DC at the Department of Labor from 1:30 p.m. 
to 3:30 p.m. The purpose of this meeting is to provide potential 
applicants with the opportunity to ask questions concerning this 
Solicitation for Cooperative Agreement Applications process. To 
register for the meeting, please call or email Ms. Doris Senko (Phone: 
202-693-4843; E-mail: [email protected]) by April 17, 2008. Please 
provide Ms. Senko with attendees' contact information, including name, 
organization, address, phone number, and e-mail address.
    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. $660 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 exploitive 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 1st day of April, 2008.
Lisa Harvey,
Grant Officer.
 [FR Doc. E8-7231 Filed 4-7-08; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4510-28-P