An Ode to USAID from my 30 Years in Global Development

What a flood of emotions on USAID’s last day. I had to write my letter of respect and admiration to the Agency and the people across the world and the decades.

In 1995, as a US Peace Corps Volunteer, I served as the District AIDS Coordinator in Nkhotakota, Malawi. My office was next to the malnourished child’s ward. The deaths from AIDS, TB, and malnutrition were soul-crushing. I’d hold babies, scanning the room where children were on the floor, too weak to cry. I saw the USAID logo on the oral rehydration packets. It was devastating to witness, but the US government was there.

In 2003, in Botswana, where HIV prevalence was at 30%, I was conducting dissertation research. I was at the USAID office and I remember hearing, “President Bush just created PEPFAR. We don’t expect much, but we’ll see.” PEPFAR-funded efforts went on to save 25,000,000 lives, strengthen health systems, expand human resource capacity, and become a global health leader and a trusted, resilient, unwavering friend to so many. This was achieved with just a fraction of 1 percent of the US federal budget.

In 2006, as a young faculty member at Boston University, I focused on applied research to support USAID’s Office of HIV and AIDS, which hired us to increase the evidence base (costs, impacts, sustainability, scalability, etc.) on orphan care and support and antiretroviral drug scale-up. This work took me to Ethiopia, India, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, where the US government was helping countries combat and recover from the AIDS epidemic. Some programs were strong, and others were not. We always understood we were trying to solve seemingly intractable problems. Our charge was to identify what works and figure out how to expand on it.

At BU, I was able to use a small pot of USAID resources. The rules were that the proposed research had to focus on vulnerable populations, be conducted in a PEPFAR country, and include capacity strengthening. I returned to Malawi—one of the poorest countries in the world—to lead years of actionable studies of the Malawi Cash Transfer, a small payment to hungry families that were so poor, they lived outside the cash economy. USAID’s seed money leveraged additional resources and helped build an evidence base for a national social protection policy that still supports 300,000 (desperately poor) families a year. UNICEF was a lead partner, working continent-wide with the World Bank and bilateral aid agencies, so our findings informed social protection policies and programs that are now implemented across the African continent. We always measured fraud, errors, and corruption because positive, impactful, cost-effective, and sustainable projects were essential. The US and other governments prioritized understanding programmatic risks. This work also took me to Afghanistan, Bosnia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, and Palestine on similar poverty reduction projects, where we continued to build on evidence established by USAID's foundational investment.

I left BU to join an organization working with the Millennium Challenge Corporation, another of George W. Bush’s new creations. I was skeptical, but MCC was putting serious money into energy, education, agriculture, roads, and health, understanding that investing in developing countries is diplomacy and economic development; it creates markets and establishes influence and goodwill. These long-term energy projects yielded critical lessons in energy access, infrastructure, utility operations, tariff reform, regulatory tools, and policy, as MCC investments have helped connect millions of households and businesses to electricity. By design, MCC country offices close after the 5-year Compacts are implemented, but the evaluation and learning continue. I’d head over to USAID and the Department of State to continue providing the United States government with the information they needed to make the best decisions possible. Sometimes, the updates included estimates of power theft and corruption, with the data for the Department of State or the Ambassador to organize with other donor countries and push for reform.

I worked on other USAID projects in that decade, including the Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation’s “People-to-People Partnership for Peace” and the Office of Education’s projects in Tanzania. In Jordan, I dug into the US government’s 'Economic Development and Energy' and 'Education and Youth' portfolios, comprised of projects on business financing, entrepreneurial training, cluster development (IT, clean technology, medical sciences), workforce development and vocational training, tourism, school infrastructure, and water infrastructure rehabilitation. I remember after several years evaluating a national education project, finding limited impacts on student learning, and having a heart-to-heart with USAID and the state department. I was told they knew the project—which the local government was invested in—wasn’t meeting expectations, but sometimes diplomacy wins over development. A bitter pill for child learning, but I get it—diplomacy first.

Moving on, I led an evaluation of USAID’s Local Health Systems Sustainability project and examined how the US government was helping the Jordanian government develop and institutionalize a professional development system to train and relicense the entire health care sector. They had just bolstered the country’s nationwide Covid-19 response, improved laboratory quality, and were working to establish telemedicine. Given earlier projects in Jordan, I was suspicious. We had access to all the data and stakeholders and collected new evidence. Again, I was skeptical. Then I was impressed by the incredible work Abt Global and USAID were doing together with stakeholders across the Jordanian health system.

I led economic development evaluations in USAID’s Cooperative Development Initiative portfolio: the Technology for Innovation and Financial Inclusion in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Guatemala, and Senegal and Cooperative Leadership Engagement Advocacy & Research in Kenya. These turned out to be exceptional programs that were effectively building cooperatives and small- and medium-sized businesses. I also led studies of clean energy, climate, job creation, and agricultural projects. (The data and evidence to show these programs’ strengths and weaknesses were available until DOGE destroyed the knowledge management system.)

I evaluated the US government’s investment in the American University of Afghanistan, a university in exile where students must be in Qatar or hide in Afghanistan to continue learning. Faculty and staff described the fall of Kabul on that fateful day, Sunday, August 15, 2021. They rushed to preserve data and records while the Taliban advanced toward the university compound. The stories that students and faculty told were devastating. But thanks to USAID, AUAF survived, relocated to Doha, and is an exceptional investment in democracy, critical thinking, and peace. That report is available because of the Wayback Machine, as DOGE destroyed USAID's knowledge management system while the US government attacks higher education at home. AUAF must now seek other support to survive.

At Abt Global, I was absolutely thrilled every day to work with exceptional colleagues on the Power Africa 'Health Electrification and Telecommunications Alliance.' Together with public and private partners, we worked to electrify health facilities, expanding to 16 countries. This work could save lives, improve healthcare quality and the professional satisfaction of healthcare workers, while contributing to economic development in communities across the continent—what joy! The HETA team had many successes and so many plans. However, on that fateful day, Friday, January 24, 2025, the stop-work order was issued, beginning the dismantling of USAID. Just days before, on January 22, 2025, we were at USAID, talking with leaders about how we could maximally support the agency’s goals with evidence, learning, and capacity development. That was not to be.

There’s more to say. Over the years, I have learned countless lessons and worked across continents, countries, sectors, and projects. I have partnered with so many incredible people. But on this final day for USAID, I know that the pure goodness, the successes, the lives saved, the deep lessons, the hard-won skills, the lifelong friendships, and the global connections and compassionate care all live on. I remember, years ago, standing in an elevator with a Palestinian at the Ministry of Social Welfare in Ramallah. He asked me where I was from and I said, "The US," bracing for disapproval because of some recent event. He said, “We love America. We know Americans are not always the same as the government.” I hope everyone, everywhere, knows that.