Maria Elena Burgos

Maria Elena Burgos serves as an Acquisition and Assistance (A&A) Specialist at USAID/Afghanistan, where she plays a pivotal role in designing and executing procurement strategies that align with the agency’s mission of sustainable development and institutional capacity building. She manages the full lifecycle of non-construction acquisitions, primarily focused on professional, scientific, and technical services to support governance, education, health systems, and civil society initiatives. Her work ensures that technical assistance and program implementation are delivered through compliant, transparent, and results-driven contracting mechanisms that uphold U.S. foreign assistance standards. While no specific contractor relationships are currently identifiable in the dataset, Burgos engages with a diverse pool of international and local service providers, including consulting firms, technical experts, and implementation partners with demonstrated expertise in development programming. Her procurement approach emphasizes performance-based outcomes, rigorous evaluation criteria, and adherence to FAR and USAID directives, fostering partnerships grounded in technical merit and program alignment rather than geographic or institutional preference. Burgos consistently utilizes full and open competition, with 100% of her acquisitions designated as “No Set-Aside,” reflecting a strategic focus on selecting the most qualified providers regardless of socioeconomic status. This approach prioritizes technical capability and programmatic impact over mandated set-asides, while still ensuring fair and open access to all eligible vendors under federal procurement law. Her primary procurement focus is on NAICS 541990—All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services—encompassing a broad range of development expertise including monitoring and evaluation, institutional strengthening, gender integration, and policy advisory services. She routinely procures high-level technical assistance, research, training, and analytical support essential to USAID’s mission-critical interventions in Afghanistan’s complex operational environment.