Maria F. dos Santos

Fatima Dos Santos serves as an Acquisition and Assistance Specialist at USAID/South Africa, where she plays a pivotal role in executing strategic procurements that advance sustainable development and humanitarian outcomes across Southern Africa. Her responsibilities include managing the full lifecycle of non-personal services contracts and cooperative agreements, with a focus on technical assistance, institutional capacity building, and program implementation support. She specializes in acquisitions aligned with USAID’s core missions in public health resilience, governance strengthening, and environmental conservation, frequently overseeing contracts for consulting services, program evaluation, and community-based service delivery. Fatima cultivates collaborative relationships with a diverse array of contractors, primarily professional services firms specializing in public health programming, governance advisory, and environmental management. While no single contractor dominates her portfolio, she consistently engages with firms possessing deep regional expertise and demonstrated capacity to deliver context-sensitive technical assistance. Her working relationships are characterized by a preference for long-term, performance-based partnerships that emphasize local ownership, adaptive management, and measurable impact. Her procurement strategy reflects a strong commitment to socioeconomic inclusion, with 90% of her acquisitions conducted under full and open competition and 10% designated as Total Small Business Set-Asides under FAR 19.5. Though she does not routinely utilize 8(a), HUBZone, or SDVOSB set-asides, her consistent use of small business set-asides demonstrates a deliberate effort to expand opportunities for small, agile firms capable of delivering innovative, locally rooted solutions. Fatima’s primary procurement focus lies in NAICS 541990 (All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services), where she sources expertise in program design, monitoring and evaluation, and capacity-building consulting. She also regularly procures services under NAICS 923120 (Administration of Public Health Programs) and NAICS 541611 (Management Consulting Services), reflecting her domain expertise in HIV/AIDS response systems, civic engagement initiatives, and wildlife conservation coordination. Her work ensures that technical assistance is both operationally sound and aligned with host-country priorities.