USAID Update

Dr. Paul Farmer

Not too long ago, I wrote about the rumor circulating in foreign policy/international health circles, that Dr. Paul Farmer might be tapped to head the US Agency for International Development (USAID). This sort of thing isn’t on the mainstream media’s radar but it is an incredibly important post which will hopefully be filled soon and I am hoping that it is ultimately Dr. Farmer who gets the position.

Over at Foreign Policy’s, The Cable, Laura Rozen reports that Dr. Farmer met with Secretary Clinton last week, which is good news to those of us rooting for him to be the director of USAID. That said, it would be wrong to assume he has the job locked up, as there are others considered top contenders:

After weeks of feeling neglected and anxious that no new administrator has been named, USAID and international development community sources tell The Cable they are excited at reports that Paul Farmer, the legendary cofounder of an innovative group that has delivered healthcare to the poor in central Haiti and beyond, is under consideration to head the U.S. aid agency or serve in a top administration international assistance post that would encompass it.

A representative of Farmer’s Boston-based NGO Partners in Health would only say that the group is pleased that Farmer is under consideration along with other strong candidates. The group said that Farmer had a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week.

[snip]

Previously rumored contenders for the USAID administrator job — former State Department counselor and North Korea expert Wendy Sherman, a close Hillary Clinton advisor, and Aaron Williams, a former senior USAID official now serving as a senior vice president of international business development with the government-contractor development and research group RTI International — did not respond to requests for comment. One development community source said he thought Williams might still be under consideration for a deputy USAID administrator position. (Another Washington foreign policy hand said another Partners in Health co-founder had also been under consideration for the USAID administrator job, but had taken a job as head of a university.) Some development community sources also spoke highly of the currently acting USAID administrator, Alonzo Fulgham, but were not certain what role he would play if and when a new administrator is named.

“I have heard that they might appoint Farmer as USAID administrator as an interim thing,” said another international health activist, who wished to remain anonymous. “And that they would create [a new position] focused on global health in the process of foreign assistance reform over the coming year that Farmer might go on to head.” Administration officials did not respond to queries about the position or possible structural changes to the U.S. foreign assistance bureaucracy.

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