The U.S. Agency for International Development has awarded Computer Sciences Corp. an outsourcing contract to provide IT infrastructure support for up to five years and $200 million.

CSC will provide a range of IT services, including planning, developing, and implementing technology for USAID's network. It will support the agency's network and voice systems, systems engineering, cybersecurity, and desktops. The contract has a one-year base period with four one-year options.

USAID, an independent federal agency that distributes tens of billions of dollars in annual foreign aid, spent $84.5 million of its total operating expenditures of $811.6 million in fiscal 2008 on IT operations. Jerry Horton, formerly of the U.S. Mint and Motorola, was hired as the agency's CIO in February.

Its major IT projects include the Phoenix financial management system; the Global Aquisition and Assistance System to automate management of USAID's acquisition processes; the Steady State IT Infrastructure and Technology Modernization Program, which includes everything from disaster recovery to server virtualization to the IT service desk; and an IT transition that includes a new portfolio management system and geographic information systems, integration of siloed business systems, and document management.

CSC has been working with USAID since at least 2006, when it signed a multi-year purchase agreement worth up to $800 million. Other big contractors with the agency include Northrop Grumman, SRA International, and AT&T.

The current contract was one of the final contracts awarded under the General Services Administration's Millenia contract vehicle for large system integration and development projects, which expired in October. Millenia had a ceiling of $25 billion, but the government ended up spending only $13.6 billion on 157 projects, according to the GSA's Millenia Web site.

InformationWeek has published an in-depth report on new software models. Download the report here (registration required).