Devex Pro Insider: USAID's terminators, Hungary Helps, and a post-DOGE Peace Corps

Hello, and welcome to a special Saturday edition of Devex Pro Insider. I’m Michael Igoe, and this is where we tackle big questions about how power, money, and influence are reshaping the future of U.S. foreign aid. Today, we’ll get to know Richard Swarttz — the new acting head of the Peace Corps with connections to the Trump administration’s Chief of Staff Susie Wiles — and Paul Shea, who somehow managed to walk a DOGE tightrope and get the U.S. Office of Management and Budget’s backing to double the number of Peace Corps volunteers in the next four years. And we’re still wondering what former USAID official Tim Meisburger is up to. Tristan Azbej returns from Hungary. Plus, a tip of the hat to some folks with a tough job — the legacy USAID contracting officers tasked with shutting down their own agency despite constant reminders from Russell Vought’s OMB that they can’t be trusted to do it. But first, let’s talk power. The big 5-0 For those of you who’ve been asking me why you didn’t make the Devex Power 50 list of key players in this new era of global development, what can I say? Unlike the Olympics, there’s always next year. In a recent podcast, our fearless editors pull back the curtain on how power is shifting in global development, who holds it, and what that means for the future of this work. Give it a listen — maybe you’ll pick up some tips: the new power players. Read: Devex Power 50 Breaking up is hard to do The few dozen USAID employees who were retained to complete the task of shutting down the agency were expected to be terminated on March 7. Multiple sources have now told me that at least some members of this group are likely to be kept on until Sept. 30. Processing thousands of complex award terminations without breaking the law may be easier said than done. I previously reported on USAID’s plan to hire a crew of institutional support contractors to help with this work. As you probably heard, there’s a big caveat in the job description: anyone with previous USAID experience need not apply. According to an internal memo I obtained, the justification for bringing in a whole new cadre of contractors and barring former USAID-ers from the applicant pool is to “maintain the perception of an independent and objective closeout process by those who are most sceptical of USAID staff.” That memo came from Matthew Dickinson, who has assumed the newly-created title of “chief terminations officer” at USAID. It won’t surprise you to learn that I’ve heard from multiple sources that morale has not been great. “I can’t imagine the conditions they’re working under,” says Randy Chester, USAID vice president at the American Foreign Service Association. “I can’t imagine being there and being told, ‘I don’t trust you.’” ICYMI: USAID bars its own experts from agency closeout jobs Hungary for more The Trump administration and Hungary are getting the band back together, my colleague Elissa Miolene reports. During Trump’s first term, the two governments teamed up to help religious communities facing persecution. For Hungary, it was explicitly about helping Christians, while the Trump administration says it has a more encompassing worldview. Last week, Deputy Secretary of State Michael Rigas signed a new memorandum of understanding with Hungarian State Secretary Tristan Azbej, who has spearheaded Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Hungary Helps program. The State Department is also rolling out a $4.8 million funding opportunity for international religious freedom. Critics argue that faith-based groups and programs meant to help victims of religious violence were all harmed by Trump’s dismantling of USAID and termination of most of its programs. Read: State Department reboots religious freedom in echo of Trump's first term And now for a Devex Pro Insider first look. Give Peace Corps a chance? In the anxious months of mid-2025, while the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, was dismantling the USAID, fears mounted that another storied international affairs agency, the Peace Corps, would be on the chopping block. DOGE officials arrived at the Peace Corps in April and, as they had with USAID, gained access to its Washington, D.C. headquarters and internal systems. They were also, around the same time, wreaking havoc at AmeriCorps, the domestic volunteer service agency. “DOGE’s primary goal is to assess how efficiently an organization is operating, and the Peace Corps has always prioritized cost-effective practices,” the agency’s leaders at the time wrote to volunteers, adding, “we don’t yet know the outcome of the DOGE visit.” On Reddit, where Peace Corps volunteers regularly communicate about their service experience, some started sharing advice about what to do in the event they were all ordered to return home. Having witnessed what unfolded at USAID, the U.S. Institute of Peace, and other foreign assistance agencies that experienced something resembling a hostile takeover, the Peace Corps’ acting leaders sought to avoid a similar confrontation. In the weeks leading up to their arrival, the agency undertook extensive scenario planning exercises for how to welcome DOGE operatives and ensure they were provided with the equipment, information, and undisturbed working space they needed to do their job, according to internal emails obtained by Bloomberg. “Do NOT walk by the conference room to peek in,” instructed one email from the agency’s chief information officer, adding that “decorum and professionalism are expected.” Ten months later, the worst-case scenarios for the Peace Corps have not played out, with the agency continuing to recruit and deploy volunteers to more than 60 countries. DOGE — led by billionaire Elon Musk — did force staffing cuts, though the number of employees who were terminated or chose to leave through “deferred resignation” has not been made public. By July 2025, these reductions were already 90% complete, according to the agency’s 2026 performance plan. But while the agency’s political prospects appear brighter than they did last April — and a far cry from what has befallen USAID — the Peace Corps is hardly on solid ground. In fact, it hasn’t been for several years. Peace Corps’ volunteer numbers, which hovered above 7,000 six years ago, have never recovered from the unprecedented global evacuation it undertook in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Recruitment challenges are exacerbated by overly restrictive risk management policies and a service model in need of innovation, former senior officials told Devex. In stark contrast to the approach Musk and his operatives took at USAID — scouring the agency’s programs for anything that could be publicly weaponized against it — the Trump administration’s handling of the Peace Corps has, at least so far, suggested some level of support, rather than disdain. With the administration’s backing, the Peace Corps has challenged itself to more than double the number of volunteers currently deployed around the world. It sets up a make-or-break moment for an agency that was hobbled by the pandemic, scrutinized by DOGE, and is now under pressure to do more with less. “This is both an ambitious goal and a goal that we can achieve,” wrote Paul Shea, the agency’s then-acting CEO, in a message posted online by a Peace Corps alumni association in November. “We are setting a challenging goal because we are an agency that rises to the challenge,” he wrote. Shuffling the deck The Peace Corps has undergone two major leadership reshufflings in the last six months, but neither has come with the acrimony that accompanied political takeovers of some other foreign assistance agencies during Trump’s second administration. In August, the agency’s acting CEO, acting deputy CEO, and acting chief of staff all stepped down “to pave the way for a new leadership team to step in and guide the organizational transformations that will make Peace Corps stronger and more efficient in the long run.” But instead of replacing them with political appointees, the Trump administration promoted two longtime Peace Corps employees and a member of the team who helped steer the agency through Trump’s transition into office. Shea, a veteran Peace Corps employee and former chief financial officer, took over as acting CEO after also serving as the agency’s lead representative to DOGE. While Trump officials vilified USAID’s leadership and workforce, the public announcement of the Peace Corps’ new leadership stated that the outgoing team “helped shape a vision and structure for a sustainable future for Peace Corps, and the Administration and the Agency thank them for their service and commitment.” Shortly after taking over, Shea announced internally a new agency goal to more than double the number of Peace Corps volunteers to 8,000 by 2030. “This Administration recognizes that reaching this target requires a multidisciplined approach,” he wrote in comments to the Peace Corps’ inspector general around the same time, noting that the agency's performance plan that supports these efforts is “aligned with direction from the Office of Management and Budget.” In January, the White House announced another leadership reshuffle, appointing Richard Swarttz as acting head of the agency and shifting Shea into a senior adviser role. Swarttz strikes a more political profile. He was the chief financial officer for the Republican Party of Florida for more than a decade and has connections to Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff. When they were both involved in high-level Republican politics, Swarttz once asked Wiles to help his wife get a job. “Richard has relationships in the administration, and he is really dedicated to the Peace Corps,” Glenn Blumhorst, former head of the National Peace Corps Association, told Devex. Swarttz will lead the agency until the president nominates — and the U.S. Senate confirms — a permanent director, but he is a candidate for that nomination, a well-connected Peace Corps expert told Devex. A more controversial figure, Tim Meisburger — a former USAID official who has alleged that U.S. foreign assistance was taken over by a “leftist agenda” — was appointed as a senior adviser at the agency in June. The Peace Corps did not respond to a question about whether Meisburger is still serving in that role. Whether this is the group that can return the Peace Corps to its former glory remains to be seen. In the process, they may have to grapple with some core questions about what it means to be a Peace Corps volunteer in 2026. To read the full story and learn about the other challenges facing the Peace Corps, including the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and a risk-averse recruitment culture, click on the link below. Read: Trump hasn't killed the Peace Corps. Can he save it? Background reading: Peace Corps shuffles leadership team for DOGE era + The Trump effect: Explore our dedicated page to catch up on all the latest news, in-depth analysis, and exclusive insights on how the Trump administration’s policies are reshaping U.S. aid and global development.