NEA/AC Regional Annual Program Statement

The U.S. Department of State, through the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs Office of Assistance Coordination, announces the NEA/AC Regional Annual Program Statement under funding opportunity number DFOP0018712. The opportunity is a federal discretionary funding program using cooperative agreements and is associated with Assistance Listing 19.600, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. The Office of Assistance Coordination is seeking statements of interest for innovative foreign assistance programs benefiting partner countries while advancing U.S. commercial diplomacy and placing American interests first. The opportunity was posted on August 21, 2026, and the source identifies an expected nine awards with estimated total program funding of $190,000,000. The program is intended to leverage foreign assistance as a tool of statecraft that advances U.S. economic, security, and diplomatic objectives while creating benefits for partner countries. Proposed projects are expected to demonstrate how assistance can support U.S. partners and promote a trade-not-aid approach. The funder emphasizes leveraging assistance resources to champion American enterprise and infrastructure, catalyze private capital, and apply market principles. This framing indicates that competitive concepts should connect their proposed foreign assistance activities to identifiable U.S. economic, commercial, security, or diplomatic objectives rather than treating assistance as an end in itself. Statements of interest may address programs in sectors including energy development and exports, trade facilitation, emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence and telecommunications, critical infrastructure, aviation, 5G, transportation, space technology, critical minerals, regional economic integration, advanced manufacturing, workforce training aligned with U.S. business needs, and economic recovery in conflict-affected areas. These examples establish a broad international development and commercial diplomacy scope involving economic development, infrastructure, technology, energy, transportation, workforce development, and related activities. The supplied source does not identify additional spending restrictions, indirect cost limitations, subaward limits, or a stated period of performance. Cost sharing or matching is expressly not required. Eligible applicants include not-for-profit organizations, including think tanks and civil society or non-governmental organizations; public and private educational institutions; for-profit organizations; public international organizations; and governmental institutions. The eligibility statement does not provide a specific U.S. state, territory, county, city, or other sub-state applicant restriction. Because the opportunity is framed around foreign assistance programs benefiting partner countries and includes public international organizations among eligible applicants, the supplied synopsis supports an international program context, but it does not provide enough detail to identify a specific list of eligible countries or partner-country locations. Applicants are instructed to submit a statement of interest. The supplied Grants.gov synopsis provides an Apply function and also links to the opportunity in MyGrants, but it does not provide the full statement-of-interest questions, required narrative sections, attachments, page limits, budget forms, registration steps, or other detailed submission requirements. Accordingly, those application components cannot be established from the supplied material. The source likewise does not provide specific evaluation criteria, scoring weights, review factors, award notification dates, or an anticipated project start date. Applicants should therefore rely on the full announcement and application package for requirements not reproduced in the synopsis. The opportunity is currently accepting applications. The posted date is August 21, 2026, and the current and original closing date is September 30, 2026. No separate letter of intent, concept paper deadline, notice of intent, or other pre-application gating deadline is identified in the supplied synopsis. Although the opportunity title calls this an Annual Program Statement, the supplied material does not explicitly state that this specific funding opportunity recurs annually, does not use a recurrence phrase establishing future cycles, and does not provide a next-cycle date. Questions concerning electronic access to the full announcement may be directed to NEA-Grants@state.gov. No individual grantor contact name or telephone number is supplied.

Align proposals with U.S. economic and strategic priorities demonstrate measurable outcomes and clearly articulate how projects support American commercial interests and partnerships