Kiersten Johnson

I currently direct a USAID flagship decision support program, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), which has a budget of ~$350,000,000 over 5 years, and is responsible for informing the allocation of more than $6 billion in humanitarian food assistance annually. I also lead the USAID/FEWS NET Management Team in the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA), with 12 PhD and/or senior-level staff direct reports. I have navigated my team and the FEWS NET program through organizational changes at the Agency and in response to major shifts in the geopolitical and environmental landscapes, through results-based strategic planning, intra- and interagency collaboration, and cross-organizational coalition-building. I stood up the program’s first workstream dedicated to analysis and now-casting of instability and conflict risks, and established FEWS NET's first whole-of-program monitoring and evaluation plan.