Marie-Claire SOW

Marie-Claire J. Sow serves as a Senior Acquisition Specialist at USAID/Uganda, where she leads the planning, solicitation, and award of complex technical assistance contracts aligned with the agency’s mission of building self-reliance through sustainable development. Her portfolio centers on evidence-based programming in health systems strengthening, governance, and ecosystem management, with a strong emphasis on localized service delivery and institutional capacity building. She manages full-cycle acquisitions under the Federal Acquisition Regulation, ensuring compliance with U.S. foreign assistance policy and USAID’s streamlined procurement guidelines, frequently engaging in requirements analysis, source selection, and post-award management for high-impact development initiatives. While no specific contractor relationships are publicly identifiable in the data, Sow consistently engages a diverse pool of professional service providers, including international consultants, local Ugandan NGOs, and technical firms with demonstrated expertise in public health, monitoring and evaluation, and community-based programming. Her procurement approach prioritizes performance-based contracting and adaptive management, fostering long-term partnerships with vendors capable of delivering context-sensitive, results-driven solutions under dynamic operational conditions. Sow’s contracting patterns reflect a strong preference for open competition, with 96.3% of awards issued without set-asides, indicating a focus on merit-based selection of the most qualified providers. However, she maintains a deliberate commitment to small business participation, with 3.7% of awards designated as Total Small Business Set-Asides under FAR 19.5, demonstrating alignment with USAID’s broader socioeconomic inclusion goals without compromising technical rigor. Her primary procurement focus lies in NAICS 541990 (All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services), encompassing technical advisory services, M&E frameworks, and capacity-building support. She also regularly procures support services under 561990 and educational support under 611710, reflecting deep expertise in health systems strengthening—particularly under PEPFAR—and governance programming. Her work underscores a nuanced understanding of development contracting in complex, low-resource environments.