Cynthia Waters, Contract Specialist

Cynthia Waters serves as a Contract Specialist at the Millennium Challenge Corporation, where she plays a pivotal role in executing performance-based, results-driven acquisitions that advance the agency’s mission of fostering sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction in low-income partner nations. She manages the full lifecycle of professional services contracts, ensuring alignment with MCC’s rigorous standards for transparency, accountability, and measurable impact. Her portfolio primarily encompasses technical assistance, evaluation, and institutional capacity-building services, all designed to support public financial management reforms and infrastructure resilience initiatives in developing economies. Waters maintains consistent working relationships with a core group of high-performing contractors including TCG Inc., Norda Stelo Inc., DT Global Inc., Mathematica Inc., and 1901 Group, LLC. These firms are selected for their demonstrated expertise in international development, data analytics, monitoring and evaluation, and governance reform. Her procurement approach emphasizes performance metrics, outcome-based deliverables, and long-term partnership models that prioritize technical excellence and adaptive management over transactional engagements. While the majority of her acquisitions are conducted under full and open competition—reflecting an 80% no set-aside preference—she actively supports small business participation through Total Small Business Set-Asides under FAR 19.5, demonstrating a deliberate commitment to expanding opportunities for qualified small firms in the international development sector. Her socioeconomic contracting patterns reflect MCC’s broader equity goals without compromising performance standards. Her procurement focus is exclusively concentrated under NAICS 541990, encompassing all other professional, scientific, and technical services. This includes complex, multidisciplinary engagements such as economic policy analysis, impact evaluations, institutional diagnostics, and capacity-building technical support—all critical to MCC’s mission of empowering partner countries through evidence-based, locally owned development solutions.