Sonali Korde takes the helm of USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance

Sonali Korde has taken the reins of the USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, or BHA, the agency’s lead responder to disasters, conflict, and crises worldwide. Last year, the bureau responded to 76 crises in 64 countries, managing billions of dollars in emergency programming. “In order to do this work, we have to defend it. And we have no better and more persuasive advocator, and advocate, and connector than Sonali up on the Hill as our resources hang in the balance,” said USAID Administrator Samantha Power, speaking at Korde’s swearing-in ceremony on Monday in Washington. Korde is coming to the bureau after nearly two decades at USAID, where she most recently served as deputy assistant to the administrator for the Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance. In that role, she worked as the Deputy to the U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Humanitarian Issues, where she was charged with leading U.S. diplomacy efforts to address the continued humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Before joining BHA, Korde spent years in high-level roles across USAID, which had a budget of $60.4 billion last year. She has served as deputy chief of staff for policy in the office of the administrator, acting deputy assistant administrator at the USAID Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs, deputy director for coordination on USAID’s COVID-19 response, and senior policy advisor on USAID’s Ebola response in the Eastern Congo, among other roles. During that time, Korde put herself at the forefront of the responses she managed: Enrolling herself in an experimental Ebola vaccine trial before she helped push them out more widely, and deploying to Tel Aviv just days after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. “She, within days, seemed to have acquired a black belt in bureaucracy,” Power said, reflecting on the beginning of Korde’s career with USAID. “She was a master diplomat, one of the most persuasive people any of us have ever worked with. And all of that was harnessed in pursuit of USAID’s goals in the world, which was fundamentally to promote individual dignity.” Korde is taking the place of Sarah Charles, who stepped down from her role as humanitarian chief in January. Charles’ tenure at the bureau saw an unprecedented level of funding for humanitarian crises — an increase fueled by emergency funding packages to address the war in Ukraine, along with the ripple effects of the pandemic. In 2022, the bureau administered $11.9 billion to 79 countries, a nearly 50% increase from the year prior. Despite that, BHA is also struggling. Its workforce has been strained and stretched by not only increased global need but also by internal staffing and retention challenges. “The only reason that I am leaving this role is that right now my family needs me and I need my family in a way that I am finding increasingly difficult to balance. And, I’m tired,” wrote Charles in a message announcing her resignation to the bureau staff members. Korde — it seems — is not. She spent her first few weeks as head of the bureau visiting staff in the Middle East, meeting staff, ambassadors, and other partners to discuss USAID’s response to crises in Syria, Gaza, and Yemen. “I’m truly honored to serve in this role & I look forward to sharing stories about our bureau’s great lifesaving work on this account,” Korde posted on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter, in late January.