President Barack Obama has nominated Gayle Smith to be the next administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
If confirmed, Smith will assume leadership of the world’s largest bilateral aid organization, and will likely look to secure many of the reform measures and priority initiatives introduced under her predecessor Rajiv Shah, while, perhaps, elevating the role of the U.S. aid chief in U.S. foreign policy.
Smith, who serves as special assistant to the president and senior director of the National Security Council, is no stranger to the Washington, D.C., development community, nor to the long list of initiatives and the tangled web of interagency tensions that often characterize U.S. development policy and its implementation.
About the author
Michael Igoe@AlterIgoe
Michael Igoe is a Senior Reporter with Devex, based in Washington, D.C. He covers U.S. foreign aid, global health, climate change, and development finance. Prior to joining Devex, Michael researched water management and climate change adaptation in post-Soviet Central Asia, where he also wrote for EurasiaNet. Michael earned his bachelor's degree from Bowdoin College, where he majored in Russian, and his master’s degree from the University of Montana, where he studied international conservation and development.
