USAID Acquisition Regulation: United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Acquisition Regulation (AIDAR): Planning, Collection, and Submission of Digital Information as Well as Submission of Activity Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Plan to USAID, 22990-22992 [2023-06998]

Download as PDF 22990 Federal Register / Vol. 88, No. 72 / Friday, April 14, 2023 / Proposed Rules Station Information Report (Local TV Report) or consider requests to use other reputable alternative data sources to make this determination. In the NPRM, we also invite comment on the all the proposed approaches and on any alternatives, which will provide the Commission additional information on possible steps that can be taken to minimize any significant impact on small entities. F. Federal Rules That May Duplicate, Overlap, or Conflict With the Proposed Rules None. 57. Accordingly, it is ordered that, pursuant to the authority found in §§ 1, 2, 4(i), 4(j), 303, 307, 309, 311, and 336(f) of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, 47 U.S.C. 151, 152, 154(i), 154(j), 303, 307, 309, 311, 336(f), and the Low Power Protection Act, Pub. L. 117–344, 136 Stat. 6193 (2023), this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is adopted. 58. It is further ordered that the Commission’s Consumer and Government Affairs Bureau, Reference Information Center, shall send a copy of this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, including the Initial Regulatory Flexibility Act Analysis, to the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the Small Business Administration. List of Subjects in 47 CFR Part 73 Television. Federal Communications Commission. Marlene Dortch, Secretary. For the reasons discussed in the preamble, the Federal Communications Commission proposes to amend 47 CFR part 73 to read as follows: PART 73—RADIO BROADCAST SERVICES 1. The Authority citation for part 73 continues to read as follows: ■ Authority: 47 U.S.C. 154, 155, 301, 303, 307, 309, 310, 334, 336, 339. ■ 2. Add § 73.6030 to read as follows: ddrumheller on DSK120RN23PROD with PROPOSALS1 § 73.6030 Low Power Protection Act. (a) Definitions. For purposes of the Low Power Protection Act, a low power television station’s Designated Market Area (DMA) shall be defined as the DMA where its transmission facilities (i.e., the tower or building on which its antenna is mounted) are located. DMAs are determined by Nielsen Media Research and published in the Nielsen Local TV Station Information Report. A low power television station shall be defined in accordance with § 74.701(k). VerDate Sep<11>2014 17:22 Apr 13, 2023 Jkt 259001 (b) Eligibility Requirements. In order to be eligible for Class A status under the Low Power Television Protection Act, low power television licensees must: (1) have been operating in a DMA with not more than 95,000 television households as of January 5, 2023; (2) have been broadcasting a minimum of 18 hours per day between October 7, 2022 and January 5, 2023; (3) have been broadcasting a minimum of at least three hours per week of locally produced programming between October 7, 2022 and January 5, 2023; (4) have been operating in compliance with the Commission’s requirements applicable to low power television stations between October 7, 2022 and January 5, 2023; (5) be in compliance with the Commission’s operating rules for fullpower television stations from and after the date of its application for a Class A license; and (6) demonstrate that the Class A station for which the license is sought will not cause any interference described in 47 U.S.C. 336(f)(7). (c) Application Requirements. Applications for conversion to Class A status must be submitted using FCC Form 2100, Schedule F within one year beginning on the date on which the Commission issues notice that the rules implementing the Low Power Protection Act takes effect. The licensee will be required to submit, as part of its application, documentation sufficient to support its certification that the licensee meets the eligibility requirements for a Class A license under the Low Power Protection Act. (d) Licensing Requirements. A Class A television broadcast license will only be issued under the Low Power Protection Act to a low power television licensee that files an application for a Class A Television license (FCC Form 2100, Schedule F), which is granted by the Commission. (e) Service Requirements. Stations that convert to Class A status pursuant to the Low Power Protection Act are required to meet the service requirements specified in § 73.6001(b) through (d) of this chapter for the term of their Class A license. In addition, such stations must remain in compliance with the programming and operational standards set forth in the Low Power Protection Act for the term of their Class A license. In addition, such stations must continue to operate in DMAs with not more than 95,000 television households in order to maintain their Class A status. PO 00000 Frm 00072 Fmt 4702 Sfmt 4702 (f) Other regulations. From and after the date of applying for Class A status under the Low Power Protection Act, stations must comply with the requirements applicable to Class A stations specified in §§ 73.6001(b) through (d) and 73.6026 of this chapter for the term of their Class A license. Except as otherwise provided in this paragraph (§ 73.6030), the regulations in part 73, subpart J of the Commission’s rules (§§ 73.6000 through 73.6029) shall apply to stations that apply to convert, and that convert, to Class A status pursuant to the Low Power Protection Act. Stations that convert to Class A status pursuant to the Low Power Protection Act must comply with the requirements applicable to Class A stations specified in § 73.6026 of this chapter for the term of their Class A license. [FR Doc. 2023–07660 Filed 4–13–23; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6712–01–P AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 48 CFR Parts 727, 742, and 752 RIN 0412–AA90 USAID Acquisition Regulation: United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Acquisition Regulation (AIDAR): Planning, Collection, and Submission of Digital Information as Well as Submission of Activity Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Plan to USAID U.S. Agency for International Development. ACTION: Notice of availability of supplemental document; request for comments. AGENCY: This document advises the public that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is placing in the public docket a standards document related to USAID’s proposed Rulemaking that, in part, proposed to add a new section to the USAID Acquisition Regulations (AIDAR). During the public comment period, USAID received comments requesting public access to the ‘‘USAID Digital Information Technical Guidelines,’’ which are referenced in the proposed regulatory language. This document makes those Guidelines available, renames the Guidelines to ‘‘USAID Digital Collection and Submission Standards,’’ and solicits public comment. SUMMARY: Comments on this document must be received by May 15, 2023. DATES: E:\FR\FM\14APP1.SGM 14APP1 Federal Register / Vol. 88, No. 72 / Friday, April 14, 2023 / Proposed Rules Address all comments concerning this notice to Kelly Miskowski, USAID M/OAA/P, at 202– 256–7378 or policymailbox@usaid.gov. Submit comments, identified by title of the action and Regulatory Information Number (RIN) through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at https:// www.regulations.gov by following the instructions for submitting comments. Please include your name, company name (if any), and ‘‘0412–AA90’’ on any attachments. If your comment cannot be submitted using https:// www.regulations.gov, please email the points of contact in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section of this document for alternate instructions. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Kelly Miskowski, USAID M/OAA/P, at 202–916–2752 or policymailbox@ usaid.gov for clarification of content or information pertaining to status or publication schedules. All communications regarding this rulemaking must cite AIDAR RIN No. 0412–AA90. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In the Federal Register of December 15, 2021, (86 FR 71216), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced a proposed rule to implement USAID requirements for managing digital information data as a strategic asset to inform the planning, design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of the Agency’s foreign assistance programs (2021 Digital Information NPRM). Among other changes, the 2021 Digital Information NPRM proposed adding a new section to the USAID Acquisition Regulations (AIDAR) at 48 CFR part 752 (proposed AIDAR 752.227–7x, Planning, Collection, and Submission of Digital Information to USAID). Proposed paragraph (h) refers to ‘‘USAID Digital Information Technical Guidelines’’ (proposed AIDAR 752.227–7x(h)) which USAID proposed to publish at data.usaid.gov/guidelines. The comment period for the 2021 Digital Information NPRM closed on February 14, 2022. During the comment period, several commenters requested access to these guidelines. In a forthcoming Final Rule for RIN 0412–AA90, USAID will revise the proposed text of AIDAR 752.227–7x(h)to refer to ‘‘USAID Digital Information Technical Standards’’ and direct the public to the following website: ‘‘data.usaid.gov/standards’’. Therefore, USAID will use the term ‘‘standards’’ in this document. Through this document, USAID is making the full text of the ‘‘USAID Digital Information Technical Standards’’ available in the docket. ddrumheller on DSK120RN23PROD with PROPOSALS1 ADDRESSES: VerDate Sep<11>2014 17:22 Apr 13, 2023 Jkt 259001 USAID is soliciting public comments on these standards, including the proposed text of AIDAR 752.227–7x(h) (86 FR at 71224) that refers to these standards. Comments received as a result of this document will be addressed as part of the forthcoming Final Rule package. The finalized standards will be published as prescribed in the Final Rule. USAID anticipates that future revisions to these standards will be published in the Federal Register. USAID expects contractors to comply with the version in effect on the date of the award. Historical versions of the standards will also be available on the website cited in the AIDAR. Mark A. Walther, Chief Acquisition Officer. B. Notice of Availability of USAID Digital Collection and Submission Standards As outlined above, USAID is announcing the availability of the following Digital Collection and Submission Standards: Version: 1.0 Dated: [DATE OF PUBLICATION IN THE Federal Register] USAID’s Digital Collection and Submission Standards are a compendium of standards for USAID staff and contractors to use in support of USAID programs and operations. The standards in Section A are required. Section B contains recommended standards that represent industry best practices. Section A: Required Digital Information Technical Standards (a) File Format Standards (1) Acceptable Non-Proprietary Formats (i) Text and Documents (ii) Portable Document Format (PDF/ A is preferred, however .pdf is acceptable) (iii) Plain text (.txt) (iv) LaTeX documents (.tex) (v) Hypertext Markup Language (.html) (vi) Open Document Format (.odt) (vii) Extensible Markup Language (.xml) (viii) JavaScript Object Notation (.json) (2) Tables, Spreadsheets, and Databases (i) Comma-Separated Values (.csv) (ii) Tab-separated tables (.txt— sometimes .tsv) (iii) Comma-separated tables (.csv or .txt) (iv) Other standard delimiter (e.g. colon, pipe) (v) Fixed-width (vi) OpenDocument Spreadsheet PO 00000 Frm 00073 Fmt 4702 Sfmt 4702 22991 (.ods) (3) Audio Files (i) WAVE (.wav) (ii) FLAC (.flac) (iii) MPEG–3 (iv) MP3 (4) Image Files (i) JPEG (.jpg or .jp2) (ii) Portable Network Graphics (.png) (iii) TIFF (.tiff or .tif) (iv) Portable Document Format (.pdf) (5) Video Files (i) Video File (.mov) (ii) MPEG–4 (mp4) (iii) JPEG2 2000 (mj2) (6) Geospatial Files (i) QGIS Project (.qgs) (ii) ESRI Shapefile (.shp, .shx, .dbf) (iii) Annotated TIFF Raster Files (.tif) (iv) Keyhole Mark Language (.kml) (v) Geographic Data Format based on JSON (.geojson) (vi) Google Earth GIS Format (.kml, .kmz) (vii) Well Known Text for Spatial Objects (.wkt) (viii) Raster GIS File Format (ix) Unidata Scientific Data Format (b) Subject Area Standards (1) Narrative Text (i) Digital narrative text that is written in the English language, including narrative about USAID programs and operations, must comply with the Plain Writing Act of 2010 and associated guidelines and resources found on the federal plain language website. Because USAID may publish a narrative in keeping with the U.S. Government legislative requirements (e.g. the Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act of 2016) and other transparency commitments (e.g. International Aid Transparency Initiative; Open Government Partnership) or Freedom of Information Act requests, the narrative must be clear, thorough, and descriptive to facilitate public understanding. (2) Geospatial (i) The location(s) where an activity is implemented must be collected at the second level administrative boundary (e.g. state, district, county, province) or more granular administrative boundary when appropriate. USAID follows the Geopolitical Entities, Names, and Codes (GENC) Standard and additional geospatial data standards as outlined in ADS 579saa ‘‘Geographic Data Collection and Submission Standards.’’ (3) Date (i) YYYY–MM–DD Section B: Recommended Digital Information Technical Standards USAID recommends the following standards that have not been formally E:\FR\FM\14APP1.SGM 14APP1 ddrumheller on DSK120RN23PROD with PROPOSALS1 22992 Federal Register / Vol. 88, No. 72 / Friday, April 14, 2023 / Proposed Rules adopted as a requirement by the Agency but encouraged and recommended for use to improve the management, quality, and usefulness of the data. USAID recommends the use of the following standards when appropriate and practicable: (a) Code, Algorithm, and Analytical Files (1) Javascript (.js) (2) Java (3) .NET (4) Python (.py) (5) Ruby (.rb) (6) R (.r) (7) SQL (b) GS1 Standards—USAID-funded programs beyond Global Health are strongly recommended to adopt GS1 Standards for the supply chain to facilitate product identification, location identification, and product master data of Agency-funded commodities. Additional guidance for implementation of GS1 Standards can be found here. (c) Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange (SDMX) for statistical data (d) CGIAR Ontologies for crop and agronomy ontology (e) FHIR for healthcare data exchange (f) ISO 8601 for Date, Time, and Time Zone (g) Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Standards for geospatial data. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is an international consortium of more than 500 businesses, government agencies, research organizations, and universities driven to make geospatial (location) information and services FAIR—Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. (h) International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) (i) FAIR Data Principles—To the extent possible, USAID-funded data and metadata must align with data principles which are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. (j) Metadata Creation Tools: (1) USGS TKME—A Windows platform tool for creating FGDC– CSDGM which can be configured for Biological Data Profile and other extensions. The software program is closely aligned with the Metadata Parser, and can be configured for French and Spanish. (2) mdEditor—Create ISO and FGDC– CSDGM metadata with this web-based tool. (3) Data dictionary conversion service—Convert a data dictionary table to/from metadata format (instructions). (4) USDA Metavist—A desktop metadata editor for creating FGDC– CSDGM for geospatial metadata. Includes the Biological Data Profile VerDate Sep<11>2014 17:22 Apr 13, 2023 Jkt 259001 (version 1.6). Produced and maintained by the USDA Forest Service. Download the USGS Alaska Science Center (ASC) Metavist User Guide [PDF] to learn more about the tool and ASC best practices for authors. (5) Microsoft XML Notepad—A simple intuitive user interface for browsing and editing XML files. Does not automatically produce FGDC–CSDGM records but allows easy editing and validation of existing metadata records. See Advanced Users to learn how to configure this tool. [FR Doc. 2023–06998 Filed 4–13–23; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6116–01–P DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 48 CFR Parts 3015, 3016, and 3052 [Docket No. DHS–2009–005] RIN 1601–AA43 Revision of Department of Homeland Security Acquisition Regulation; Limitations on Subcontracting in Emergency Acquisitions (HSAR Case 2009–005); Withdrawal Office of the Chief Procurement Officer, Department of Homeland Security (DHS). ACTION: Notice of proposed rulemaking; withdrawal. AGENCY: DHS is withdrawing a proposed rule titled ‘‘Revision of Department of Homeland Security Acquisition Regulation; Limitations on Subcontracting in Emergency Acquisitions (HSAR Case 2009–005)’’ and providing notice of its cancellation. The notice of proposed rulemaking proposed to amend the Homeland Security Acquisition Regulation (HSAR) to implement a law that limited the use of subcontractors on costreimbursement type contracts entered into by the Department to facilitate the response to or recovery from a natural disaster or act of terrorism or other manmade disaster. DHS is withdrawing this proposed rule because Congress has since repealed this provision. Thus, DHS will not take any further action on this proposal. DATES: The proposed rule published on June 9, 2010 (75 FR 32723), is withdrawn as of April 14, 2023. ADDRESSES: Mail: Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Chief Procurement Officer, Acquisition Policy and Legislation, ATTN: Catherine Benavides, 245 Murray Drive, Bldg. 410 (RDS), Washington, DC 20528. Ms. Catherine Benavides, Procurement Analyst, DHS, Office of the Chief Procurement Officer, Acquisition Policy and Legislation at (202) 897–8301 or email HSAR@hq.dhs.gov. When using email, include HSAR Case 2009–005 in the ‘‘Subject’’ line. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On June 9, 2010, DHS proposed to amend the HSAR, 48 CFR parts 3015, 3016, and 3052, to propose regulations to implement Public Law 109–295, PostKatrina Emergency Management Reform Act (PKERMA), title VI, section 692, Limitations on Tiering of Subcontractors. Subsequently, title VIII, section 866 of the Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009 resulted in Government-wide changes to the Federal Acquisition Regulation to prevent excessive subcontracting, making section 692 unnecessary. Subsequently Congress repealed section 692 in Public Law 117–253 (December 20, 2022). Thus, DHS is withdrawing this proposed rule and will not take any further action on this proposal. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Paul Courtney, Chief Procurement Officer, Department of Homeland Security. [FR Doc. 2023–07674 Filed 4–13–23; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE P DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE SUMMARY: PO 00000 Frm 00074 Fmt 4702 Sfmt 4702 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 50 CFR Part 300 [Docket No. 230410–0095; RTID 0648– XC711] Pacific Halibut Fisheries of the West Coast; Management Measures for the 2023 Area 2A Pacific Halibut Directed Commercial Fishery National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Commerce. ACTION: Proposed rule. AGENCY: NMFS proposes to implement harvest specifications and management measures for the 2023 non-tribal directed commercial Pacific halibut fishery that operates south of Point Chehalis, WA (46°53.30′ N lat.) in the International Pacific Halibut Commission’s regulatory Area 2A off Washington, Oregon, and California. Specifically, NMFS is proposing the 2023 directed commercial fishing periods and fishing period catch limits SUMMARY: E:\FR\FM\14APP1.SGM 14APP1

Agencies

[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 72 (Friday, April 14, 2023)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 22990-22992]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2023-06998]


=======================================================================
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

48 CFR Parts 727, 742, and 752

RIN 0412-AA90


USAID Acquisition Regulation: United States Agency for 
International Development (USAID) Acquisition Regulation (AIDAR): 
Planning, Collection, and Submission of Digital Information as Well as 
Submission of Activity Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Plan to 
USAID

AGENCY: U.S. Agency for International Development.

ACTION: Notice of availability of supplemental document; request for 
comments.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY: This document advises the public that the U.S. Agency for 
International Development (USAID) is placing in the public docket a 
standards document related to USAID's proposed Rulemaking that, in 
part, proposed to add a new section to the USAID Acquisition 
Regulations (AIDAR). During the public comment period, USAID received 
comments requesting public access to the ``USAID Digital Information 
Technical Guidelines,'' which are referenced in the proposed regulatory 
language. This document makes those Guidelines available, renames the 
Guidelines to ``USAID Digital Collection and Submission Standards,'' 
and solicits public comment.

DATES: Comments on this document must be received by May 15, 2023.

[[Page 22991]]


ADDRESSES: Address all comments concerning this notice to Kelly 
Miskowski, USAID M/OAA/P, at 202-256-7378 or [email protected]. 
Submit comments, identified by title of the action and Regulatory 
Information Number (RIN) through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at 
https://www.regulations.gov by following the instructions for submitting 
comments. Please include your name, company name (if any), and ``0412-
AA90'' on any attachments. If your comment cannot be submitted using 
https://www.regulations.gov, please email the points of contact in the 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section of this document for alternate 
instructions.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Kelly Miskowski, USAID M/OAA/P, at 
202-916-2752 or [email protected] for clarification of content or 
information pertaining to status or publication schedules. All 
communications regarding this rulemaking must cite AIDAR RIN No. 0412-
AA90.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In the Federal Register of December 15, 
2021, (86 FR 71216), the U.S. Agency for International Development 
(USAID) announced a proposed rule to implement USAID requirements for 
managing digital information data as a strategic asset to inform the 
planning, design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of the 
Agency's foreign assistance programs (2021 Digital Information NPRM). 
Among other changes, the 2021 Digital Information NPRM proposed adding 
a new section to the USAID Acquisition Regulations (AIDAR) at 48 CFR 
part 752 (proposed AIDAR 752.227-7x, Planning, Collection, and 
Submission of Digital Information to USAID). Proposed paragraph (h) 
refers to ``USAID Digital Information Technical Guidelines'' (proposed 
AIDAR 752.227-7x(h)) which USAID proposed to publish at data.usaid.gov/guidelines. The comment period for the 2021 Digital Information NPRM 
closed on February 14, 2022. During the comment period, several 
commenters requested access to these guidelines. In a forthcoming Final 
Rule for RIN 0412-AA90, USAID will revise the proposed text of AIDAR 
752.227-7x(h)to refer to ``USAID Digital Information Technical 
Standards'' and direct the public to the following website: 
``data.usaid.gov/standards''. Therefore, USAID will use the term 
``standards'' in this document. Through this document, USAID is making 
the full text of the ``USAID Digital Information Technical Standards'' 
available in the docket.
    USAID is soliciting public comments on these standards, including 
the proposed text of AIDAR 752.227-7x(h) (86 FR at 71224) that refers 
to these standards. Comments received as a result of this document will 
be addressed as part of the forthcoming Final Rule package. The 
finalized standards will be published as prescribed in the Final Rule. 
USAID anticipates that future revisions to these standards will be 
published in the Federal Register. USAID expects contractors to comply 
with the version in effect on the date of the award. Historical 
versions of the standards will also be available on the website cited 
in the AIDAR.

Mark A. Walther,
Chief Acquisition Officer.

B. Notice of Availability of USAID Digital Collection and Submission 
Standards

    As outlined above, USAID is announcing the availability of the 
following Digital Collection and Submission Standards:

Version: 1.0
Dated: [DATE OF PUBLICATION IN THE Federal Register]

    USAID's Digital Collection and Submission Standards are a 
compendium of standards for USAID staff and contractors to use in 
support of USAID programs and operations. The standards in Section A 
are required. Section B contains recommended standards that represent 
industry best practices.

Section A: Required Digital Information Technical Standards

    (a) File Format Standards

(1) Acceptable Non-Proprietary Formats
    (i) Text and Documents
    (ii) Portable Document Format (PDF/A is preferred, however .pdf is 
acceptable)
    (iii) Plain text (.txt)
    (iv) LaTeX documents (.tex)
    (v) Hypertext Markup Language (.html)
    (vi) Open Document Format (.odt)
    (vii) Extensible Markup Language (.xml)
    (viii) JavaScript Object Notation (.json)
(2) Tables, Spreadsheets, and Databases
    (i) Comma-Separated Values (.csv)
    (ii) Tab-separated tables (.txt--sometimes .tsv)
    (iii) Comma-separated tables (.csv or .txt)
    (iv) Other standard delimiter (e.g. colon, pipe)
    (v) Fixed-width
    (vi) OpenDocument Spreadsheet (.ods)
(3) Audio Files
    (i) WAVE (.wav)
    (ii) FLAC (.flac)
    (iii) MPEG-3
    (iv) MP3
(4) Image Files
    (i) JPEG (.jpg or .jp2)
    (ii) Portable Network Graphics (.png)
    (iii) TIFF (.tiff or .tif)
    (iv) Portable Document Format (.pdf)
(5) Video Files
    (i) Video File (.mov)
    (ii) MPEG-4 (mp4)
    (iii) JPEG2 2000 (mj2)
(6) Geospatial Files
    (i) QGIS Project (.qgs)
    (ii) ESRI Shapefile (.shp, .shx, .dbf)
    (iii) Annotated TIFF Raster Files (.tif)
    (iv) Keyhole Mark Language (.kml)
    (v) Geographic Data Format based on JSON (.geojson)
    (vi) Google Earth GIS Format (.kml, .kmz)
    (vii) Well Known Text for Spatial Objects (.wkt)
    (viii) Raster GIS File Format
    (ix) Unidata Scientific Data Format

    (b) Subject Area Standards
(1) Narrative Text
    (i) Digital narrative text that is written in the English language, 
including narrative about USAID programs and operations, must comply 
with the Plain Writing Act of 2010 and associated guidelines and 
resources found on the federal plain language website. Because USAID 
may publish a narrative in keeping with the U.S. Government legislative 
requirements (e.g. the Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act 
of 2016) and other transparency commitments (e.g. International Aid 
Transparency Initiative; Open Government Partnership) or Freedom of 
Information Act requests, the narrative must be clear, thorough, and 
descriptive to facilitate public understanding.
    (2) Geospatial
    (i) The location(s) where an activity is implemented must be 
collected at the second level administrative boundary (e.g. state, 
district, county, province) or more granular administrative boundary 
when appropriate. USAID follows the Geopolitical Entities, Names, and 
Codes (GENC) Standard and additional geospatial data standards as 
outlined in ADS 579saa ``Geographic Data Collection and Submission 
Standards.''
(3) Date
    (i) YYYY-MM-DD

Section B: Recommended Digital Information Technical Standards

    USAID recommends the following standards that have not been 
formally

[[Page 22992]]

adopted as a requirement by the Agency but encouraged and recommended 
for use to improve the management, quality, and usefulness of the data. 
USAID recommends the use of the following standards when appropriate 
and practicable:
    (a) Code, Algorithm, and Analytical Files
(1) Javascript (.js)
(2) Java
(3) .NET
(4) Python (.py)
(5) Ruby (.rb)
(6) R (.r)
(7) SQL

    (b) GS1 Standards--USAID-funded programs beyond Global Health are 
strongly recommended to adopt GS1 Standards for the supply chain to 
facilitate product identification, location identification, and product 
master data of Agency-funded commodities. Additional guidance for 
implementation of GS1 Standards can be found here.
    (c) Statistical Data and Metadata eXchange (SDMX) for statistical 
data
    (d) CGIAR Ontologies for crop and agronomy ontology
    (e) FHIR for healthcare data exchange
    (f) ISO 8601 for Date, Time, and Time Zone
    (g) Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Standards for geospatial data. 
The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is an international consortium of 
more than 500 businesses, government agencies, research organizations, 
and universities driven to make geospatial (location) information and 
services FAIR--Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.
    (h) International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI)
    (i) FAIR Data Principles--To the extent possible, USAID-funded data 
and metadata must align with data principles which are Findable, 
Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.
    (j) Metadata Creation Tools:
    (1) USGS TKME--A Windows platform tool for creating FGDC-CSDGM 
which can be configured for Biological Data Profile and other 
extensions. The software program is closely aligned with the Metadata 
Parser, and can be configured for French and Spanish.
    (2) mdEditor--Create ISO and FGDC-CSDGM metadata with this web-
based tool.
    (3) Data dictionary conversion service--Convert a data dictionary 
table to/from metadata format (instructions).
    (4) USDA Metavist--A desktop metadata editor for creating FGDC-
CSDGM for geospatial metadata. Includes the Biological Data Profile 
(version 1.6). Produced and maintained by the USDA Forest Service. 
Download the USGS Alaska Science Center (ASC) Metavist User Guide [PDF] 
to learn more about the tool and ASC best practices for authors.
    (5) Microsoft XML Notepad--A simple intuitive user interface for 
browsing and editing XML files. Does not automatically produce FGDC-
CSDGM records but allows easy editing and validation of existing 
metadata records. See Advanced Users to learn how to configure this 
tool.
[FR Doc. 2023-06998 Filed 4-13-23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6116-01-P
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