Maryam Abdullahi

Maryam Abdullahi serves as an Acquisition and Assistance Specialist at USAID/Nigeria, where she plays a pivotal role in executing the agency’s mission to strengthen governance, public health systems, and sustainable development outcomes through strategic procurement and assistance mechanisms. She manages a diverse portfolio of professional services contracts aligned with technical assistance, data science, and institutional capacity building, ensuring alignment with USAID’s Performance Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) frameworks. Her work directly supports program design and implementation by securing expert services that enhance local ownership and data-driven decision-making across Nigeria’s subnational institutions. Maryam collaborates with a broad spectrum of professional service providers, including international consulting firms, local Nigerian research institutions, and technical experts specializing in health systems strengthening, public sector governance, and data analytics. While no single contractor dominates her portfolio, her procurement patterns reflect a preference for agile, high-impact partnerships with organizations capable of delivering adaptive, context-specific solutions. She prioritizes performance-based contracting and outcome-oriented deliverables, fostering long-term vendor relationships grounded in accountability and technical excellence. Her contracting approach reflects a strong commitment to socioeconomic inclusion, with 12.5% of her awards designated as Total Small Business Set-Asides under FAR 19.5. Though the majority of her acquisitions are open competition, she actively encourages small business participation, particularly from firms with demonstrated expertise in development services and local capacity-building. Her pattern shows deliberate alignment with USAID’s broader goals of empowering Nigerian-owned enterprises and fostering homegrown technical capacity. Maryam’s procurement activity is exclusively focused on NAICS 541990—All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services—encompassing technical advisory services, monitoring and evaluation support, data management systems, and governance diagnostics. She routinely procures services in health systems analysis, digital public administration, and applied data science, ensuring that USAID’s interventions are evidence-based, locally informed, and sustainably integrated into Nigeria’s institutional fabric.