Heather Franklin

Heather Franklin serves as a key procurement professional within USAID/South Africa, supporting the agency’s mission to advance sustainable development and humanitarian outcomes across Southern Africa. She manages a portfolio of acquisitions focused on personal services that directly enable technical assistance, institutional capacity building, and civic engagement initiatives. Her work centers on securing specialized expertise in public health resilience, governance strengthening, and environmental conservation, ensuring that contract deliverables align with USAID’s strategic objectives and local partner needs. She oversees the full lifecycle of service-based contracts, from requirement formulation to award and performance monitoring, emphasizing compliance with federal acquisition regulations and programmatic impact. Franklin collaborates with a diverse array of service providers, including international development consultants, local NGOs, and technical experts specializing in HIV/AIDS program implementation, wildlife protection, and democratic governance. Her contracting patterns reflect a preference for experienced, mission-aligned firms capable of delivering context-specific solutions in complex operational environments. While no single contractor dominates her portfolio, she consistently engages vendors with proven track records in Southern African contexts, fostering long-term partnerships grounded in performance and adaptability. Franklin’s procurement activity is entirely non-set-aside, with 100% of awards issued under general competition. This reflects a strategic emphasis on selecting the most qualified service providers regardless of socioeconomic status, prioritizing technical capability and local relevance over set-aside categories. While she does not routinely utilize 8(a), HUBZone, or SDVOSB set-asides, her approach ensures competitive fairness and alignment with USAID’s global procurement guidelines. Her primary procurement focus is on NAICS 812990—All Other Personal Services—which encompasses a wide range of specialized technical assistance, training, research, and advisory services. She procures expertise in public health systems strengthening, data-driven governance analytics, and conservation program management, ensuring that USAID’s interventions are evidence-based, locally led, and sustainably implemented.