§ 226.2 - Definitions.

Accrued expenditures means the charges incurred by the recipient during a given period requiring the provision of funds for:

(1) Goods and other tangible property received;

(2) Services performed by employees, contractors, subrecipients, and other payees; and,

(3) Other amounts becoming owed under programs for which no current services or performance is required.

Accrued income means the sum of:

(1) Earnings during a given period from services performed by the recipient, and goods and other tangible property delivered to purchasers, and

(2) Amounts becoming owed to the recipient for which no current services or performance is required by the recipient.

Acquisition cost of equipment means the net invoice price of the equipment, including the cost of modifications, attachments, accessories, or auxiliary apparatus necessary to make the property usable for the purpose for which it was acquired. Other charges, such as the cost of installation, transportation, taxes, duty or protective in-transit insurance, shall be included or excluded from the unit acquisition cost in accordance with the recipient's regular accounting practices.

Activity mean a set of actions through which inputs—such as commodities, technical assistance, training, or resource transfers—are mobilized to produce specific outputs, such as vaccinations given, schools built, microenterprise loans issued, or policies changed. Activities are undertaken to achieve objectives that have been formally approved and notified to Congress.

Advance means a payment made by Treasury check or other appropriate payment mechanism to a recipient upon its request either before outlays are made by the recipient or through the use of predetermined payment schedules.

Agreement Officer means a person with the authority to enter into, administer, terminate and/or closeout assistance agreements subject to this part, and make related determinations and findings on behalf of USAID. An Agreement Officer can only act within the scope of a duly authorized warrant or other valid delegation of authority. The term “Agreement Officer” includes persons warranted as “Grant Officers.” It also includes certain authorized representatives of the Agreement Officer acting within the limits of their authority as delegated by the Agreement Officer.

Apparent successful applicant(s) means the applicant(s) for USAID funding recommended for an award after technical evaluation, but who has not yet been awarded a grant, cooperative agreement or other assistance award by the Agreement Officer. Apparent Successful Applicants will be requested by the Agreement Officer to submit a Branding Strategy and Marking Plan. Apparent Successful Applicant status confers no right and constitutes no USAID commitment to an award, which still must be obligated by the Agreement Officer.

Award means financial assistance that provides support or stimulation to accomplish a public purpose. Awards include grants, cooperative agreements and other agreements in the form of money or property in lieu of money, by the Federal Government to an eligible recipient. The term does not include: Technical assistance, which provides services instead of money; other assistance in the form of loans, loan guarantees, interest subsidies, or insurance; direct payments of any kind to individuals; and, contracts which are required to be entered into and administered under procurement laws and regulations.

Branding strategy means a strategy the Apparent Successful Applicant submits at the specific request of a USAID Agreement Officer after technical evaluation of an application for USAID funding, describing how the program, project, or activity is named and positioned, as well as how it is promoted and communicated to beneficiaries and cooperating country citizens. It identifies all donors and explains how they will be acknowledged. A Branding Strategy is required even if a Presumptive Exception is approved in the Marking Plan.

Cash contributions means the recipient's cash outlay, including the outlay of money contributed to the recipient by third parties.

Closeout means the process by which the Agreement Officer determines that all applicable administrative actions and all required work of the award have been completed by the recipient and USAID.

Commodities mean any material, article, supply, goods or equipment, excluding recipient offices, vehicles, and non-deliverable items for recipient's internal use in administration of the USAID funded grant, cooperative agreement, or other agreement or subagreement.

Contract means a procurement contract under an award or subaward, and a procurement subcontract under a recipient's or subrecipient's contract.

Cost sharing or matching means that portion of project or program costs not borne by the Federal Government.

Date of completion means the date on which all work under an award is completed or the date on the award document, or any supplement or amendment thereto, on which USAID sponsorship ends.

Disallowed costs means those charges to an award that the USAID Agreement Officer determines to be unallowable, in accordance with the applicable Federal costs principles or other terms and conditions contained in the award.

Equipment means tangible nonexpendable personal property including exempt property charged directly to the award having a useful life of more than one year and an acquisition cost of $5,000 or more per unit. However, consistent with recipient policy, lower limits may be established.

Excess property means property under the control of USAID that, as determined by the head of the Agency, is no longer required for its needs or the discharge of its responsibilities.

Exempt property means tangible personal property acquired in whole or in part with Federal funds, where the Federal awarding agency has statutory authority to vest title in the recipient without further obligation to the Federal Government. An example of exempt property authority is contained in the Federal Grant and Cooperative Agreement Act (31 U.S.C. 6306), for property acquired under an award to conduct basic or applied research by a non-profit institution of higher education or non-profit organization whose principal purpose is conducting scientific research.

Federal awarding agency means the Federal agency that provides an award to the recipient.

Federal funds authorized means the total amount of Federal funds obligated by the Federal Government for use by the recipient. This amount may include any authorized carryover of unobligated funds from prior funding periods when permitted by agency regulations or agency implementing instructions.

Federal share of real property, equipment, or supplies means that percentage of the property's acquisition costs and any improvement expenditures paid with Federal funds.

Funding period means the period of time when Federal funding is available for obligation by the recipient.

Intangible property and debt instruments means, but is not limited to, trademarks, copyrights, patents and patent applications and such property as loans, notes and other debt instruments, lease agreements, stock and other instruments of property ownership, whether considered tangible or intangible.

Marking plan means a plan that the Apparent Successful Applicant submits at the specific request of a USAID Agreement Officer after technical evaluation of an application for USAID funding, detailing the public communications, commodities, and program materials and other items that will visibly bear the USAID Identity. Recipients may request approval of Presumptive Exceptions to marking requirements in the Marking Plan.

Obligations means the amounts of orders placed, contracts and grants awarded, services received and similar transactions during a given period that require payment by the recipient during the same or a future period.

Outlays or expenditures means charges made to the project or program. They may be reported on a cash or accrual basis. For reports prepared on a cash basis, outlays are the sum of cash disbursements for direct charges for goods and services, the amount of indirect expense charged, the value of third party in-kind contributions applies and the amount of cash advances and payments made to subrecipients. For reports prepared on an accrual basis, outlays are the sum of cash disbursements for direct charges for goods and services, the amount of indirect expense incurred, the value of in-kind contributions applied, and the net increase (or decrease) in the amounts owed by the recipient for goods and other property received, for services performed by employees, contractors, subrecipients and other payees and other amounts becoming owed under programs for which no current services or performance are required.

Personal property means property of any kind except real property. It may be tangible, having physical existence, or intangible, having no physical existence, such as copyrights, patents, or securities.

Principal officers means the most senior officer in a USAID Operating Unit in the field, e.g., USAID Mission Director or USAID Representative. For global programs managed from Washington but executed across many countries such as disaster relief and assistance to internally displaced persons, humanitarian emergencies or immediate post conflict and political crisis response, the cognizant Principal Officer may be an Office Director, for example, the Directors of USAID/W/Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and Office of Transition Initiatives. For non-presence countries, the cognizant Principal Officer is the Senior USAID officer in a regional USAID Operating Unit responsible for the non-presence country, or in the absence of such a responsible operating unit, the Principle U.S Diplomatic Officer in the non-presence country exercising delegated authority from USAID.

Prior approval means written approval by an authorized official evidencing prior consent.

Program income means gross income earned by the recipient that is directly generated by a supported activity or earned as a result of the award (see exclusions in §§226.24 (e) and (h)). Program income includes, but is not limited to, income from fees for services performed, the use or rental of real or personal property acquired under federally-funded projects, the sale of commodities or items fabricated under an award, license fees and royalties on patents and copyrights, and interest on loans made with award funds. Interest earned on advances of Federal funds is not program income. Except as otherwise provided in USAID regulations or the terms and conditions of the award, program income does not include the receipt of principal on loans, rebates, credits, discounts, etc., or interest earned on any of them.

Programs mean an organized set of activities and allocation of resources directed toward a common purpose, objective, or goal undertaken or proposed by an organization to carry out the responsibilities assigned to it.

Project costs means all allowable costs, as set forth in the applicable Federal cost principles, incurred by a recipient and the value of the contributions made by third parties in accomplishing the objectives of the award during the project period.

Project period means the period established in the award document during which Federal sponsorship begins and ends.

Projects include all the marginal costs of inputs (including the proposed investment) technically required to produce a discrete marketable output or a desired result (for example, services from a fully functional water/sewage treatment facility).

Property means, unless otherwise stated, real property, equipment, supplies, intangible property and debt instruments.

Public communications are documents and messages intended for distribution to audiences external to the recipient's organization. They include, but are not limited to, correspondence, publications, studies, reports, audio visual productions, and other informational products; applications, forms, press and promotional materials used in connection with USAID funded programs, projects or activities, including signage and plaques; Web sites/Internet activities; and events such as training courses, conferences, seminars, press conferences and the like.

Real property means land, including land improvements, structures and appurtenances thereto, but excludes movable machinery and equipment.

Recipient means an organization receiving a grant or cooperative agreement directly from USAID to carry out a project or program. The term includes the following types of U.S. organizations: public and private institutions of higher education; public and private hospitals; quasi-public and private non-profit organizations such as, but not limited to, community action agencies, research institutes, educational associations, and health centers; and commercial organizations. The term does not include government-owned contractor-operated facilities or research centers providing continued support for mission-oriented, large-scale programs that are government-owned or controlled, or are designated as federally-funded research and development centers.

Research and development means all research activities, both basic and applied, and all development activities that are supported at universities, colleges, and other non-profit institutions. “Research” is defined as a systematic study directed toward fuller scientific knowledge or understanding of the subject studied. “Development” is the systematic use of knowledge and understanding gained from research directed toward the production of useful materials, devices, systems, or methods, including design and development of prototypes and processes. The term research also includes activities involving the training of individuals in research techniques where such activities utilize the same facilities as other research and development activities and where such activities are not included in the instruction function.

Small awards means a grant or cooperative agreement not exceeding the small purchase threshold fixed at 41 U.S.C. 403(11).

Subaward means an award of financial assistance in the form of money, or property in lieu of money, made under an award by a recipient to an eligible subrecipient or by a subrecipient to a lower tier subrecipient. The term includes financial assistance when provided by any legal agreement, even if the agreement is called a contract, but does not include procurement of goods and services nor does it include any form of assistance which is excluded from the definition of “award” in this section.

Subrecipient means the legal entity to which a subaward is made and which is accountable to the recipient for the use of the funds provided.

Supplies means all personal property excluding equipment, intangible property, and debt instruments as defined in this section, and inventions of a contractor conceived or first actually reduced to practice in the performance of work under a funding agreement (“subject inventions”), as defined in 37 CFR part 401, “Rights to Inventions Made by Nonprofit Organizations and Small Business Firms Under Government Grants, Contracts, and Cooperative Agreements.”

Suspension means an action by USAID that temporarily withdraws Federal sponsorship under an award, pending corrective action by the recipient or pending a decision to terminate the award. Suspension of an award is a separate action from suspension under USAID regulations implementing E.O.s 12549 and 12689, “Debarment and Suspension.” See 22 CFR Part 208.

Technical assistance means the provision of funds, goods, services or other foreign assistance such as loan guarantees or food for work, to developing countries and other USAID recipients, and through such recipients to subrecipients, in direct support of a development objective—as opposed to the internal management of the foreign assistance program. This definition is applicable only to 22 CFR 226.91.

Termination means the cancellation of USAID sponsorship, in whole or in part, under an agreement at any time prior to the date of completion.

Third party in-kind contributions means the value of non-cash contributions provided by non-Federal third parties. Third party in-kind contributions may be in the form of real property, equipment, supplies and other expendable property, and the value of goods and services directly benefiting and specifically identifiable to the project or program.

Unliquidated obligations, for financial reports prepared on a cash basis, means the amount of obligations incurred by the recipient that have not been paid. For reports prepared on an accrued expenditure basis, they represent the amount of obligations incurred by the recipient for which an outlay has not been recorded.

Unobligated balance means the portion of the funds authorized by USAID that has not been obligated by the recipient and is determined by deducting the cumulative obligations from the cumulative funds authorized.

Unrecovered indirect cost means the difference between the amount awarded and the amount which could have been awarded under the recipient's approved negotiated indirect cost rate.

USAID means the United States Agency for International Development.

USAID Identity (Identity) means the official marking for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) comprised of the USAID logo or seal and new brandmark with the tagline that clearly communicates our assistance is “from the American people.” The USAID Identity is available on the USAID Web site at http://www.usaid.gov/branding and is provided without royalty, license or other fee to recipients of USAID funded grants or cooperative agreements or other assistance awards.

USAID Partner Co-Branding Guide is a USAID produced publication that is provided free of charge to recipients of USAID funded grants or cooperative agreements or other assistance awards or subawards, that details recommended marking practices and provides examples of USAID funded programs, projects, activities, public communications, and commodities marked with the USAID Identity.

Working capital advance means a procedure whereby funds are advanced to the recipient to cover its estimated disbursement needs for a given initial period.

[60 FR 3744, Jan. 19, 1995, as amended at 70 FR 50189, Aug. 26, 2005]

Editorial Note: At 70 FR 50189, Aug. 26, 2005, §226.2 was amended by adding a definition of Subrecipient, effective Jan. 2, 2006. However, §226.2 already includes a definition of Subrecipient, so the amendment could not be incorporated.