Yena D. Bernard

Yena Bernard serves as an Acquisition Specialist with USAID/Haiti, responsible for managing the full lifecycle of procurement actions supporting the agency’s mission to strengthen institutional resilience and sustainable development in Haiti. She oversees the solicitation, evaluation, and award of contracts for professional, technical, and construction services critical to advancing health systems, rule of law, governance, and infrastructure initiatives. Her work directly enables the deployment of U.S. and third-country national experts through personal services contracts and technical assistance arrangements, ensuring alignment with U.S. foreign assistance objectives and federal acquisition regulations. Bernard collaborates with a diverse pool of contractors, primarily professional services firms and construction vendors, to deliver on-the-ground technical expertise and infrastructure support. While no single contractor dominates her portfolio, she routinely engages firms with demonstrated capacity in public sector capacity building, institutional strengthening, and localized construction. Her procurement approach emphasizes performance-based contracting, clear statement of work development, and rigorous vendor evaluation to ensure accountability and mission impact. Her contracting patterns reflect a strong preference for full and open competition, with 100% of her acquisitions conducted without set-asides, indicating a focus on selecting the most qualified providers regardless of socioeconomic status. This approach prioritizes technical merit and delivery capability over socioeconomic preferences, consistent with USAID’s operational needs in complex, resource-constrained environments. Bernard’s primary procurement focus lies in NAICS 541990 (All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services), reflecting her leadership in securing specialized advisory services for governance, elections, and public administration. She also regularly procures construction services under NAICS 236115, 236118, and 236220 for housing and institutional infrastructure, as well as commercial printing under 323111 for public communications and electoral materials. Her domain expertise centers on integrating technical assistance with physical infrastructure to build lasting institutional capacity in Haiti.