OAA OHN Team

The OAA OHN Team serves as the primary contracting unit within USAID/Afghanistan responsible for managing professional, scientific, and technical services acquisitions that advance the agency’s development objectives. They oversee the full lifecycle of contract awards—from requirements definition and market research to solicitation, evaluation, and contract administration—ensuring alignment with U.S. foreign assistance priorities. Their portfolio centers on expert-led interventions in governance, education, health systems strengthening, and civil society capacity building, typically procuring high-level advisory services, monitoring and evaluation frameworks, and technical assistance packages delivered by specialized consultants and implementing partners. The team maintains a broad, non-exclusive contractor base, engaging a diverse array of international and local firms with demonstrated expertise in development programming. While no single contractor dominates their award profile, they routinely partner with firms possessing deep regional experience in Afghanistan’s socio-political context, including organizations with proven track records in institutional capacity building and adaptive management. Their contracting approach emphasizes performance-based outcomes, requiring rigorous deliverable tracking and results-oriented reporting structures. The OAA OHN Team does not utilize any socioeconomic set-asides, with 100% of procurements conducted under full and open competition. This reflects a strategic decision to prioritize technical merit and programmatic impact over socioeconomic preferences, ensuring access to the broadest possible pool of qualified service providers capable of delivering complex, high-stakes development interventions in a challenging operating environment. Their procurement activity is exclusively focused on NAICS 541990—All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services—encompassing a wide spectrum of specialized support including policy analysis, data systems design, gender and inclusion programming, and results-based monitoring. The team specializes in acquiring adaptive, context-sensitive technical assistance that responds to evolving operational conditions, requiring deep domain expertise in post-conflict development, public sector reform, and cross-cultural program implementation.