Carol Spahn’s Peace Corps voyage has taken her from volunteering in Romania to dancing in Malawi. Now, as the Peace Corps’ new executive director, she’ll need all her skills to shepherd an agency emaciated by the COVID-19 pandemic and still reeling from scandal.
Also in today’s edition: Africa CDC wants to help the continent unite around a digital health strategy, and humanitarians try to navigate parenthood and perpetual crisis.
When Carol Spahn first served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bucharest, Romania was still recovering from the dark days of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s dictatorship. Nearly 30 years later, she takes the reins of the Peace Corps at a time when the storied U.S. agency is recovering from the dark days of the pandemic and past scandals.