American Foreign Service Association’s “Foreign Service Journal”: USAID Transforms
Chris Milligan, counselor to the U.S. Agency for International Development, discusses USAID’s Transformation initiative, highlighting structural changes and efforts to support its workforce, and how these efforts reflect USAID’s “Journey to Self Reliance” principle. Milligan also addresses the relationship between the State Department and USAID, writing, “The relationship between the Department of State and USAID is central to the United States achieving its foreign policy objectives. While diplomacy and development are distinct professions with distinct expertise, they must coordinate closely to achieve U.S. government goals. The spaces we operate in (e.g., humanitarian assistance, conflict prevention and stabilization, political transitions, countering violent extremism, fragile states) are increasingly interagency spaces. The Transformation initiative recognizes that our work requires far more coordination and engagement with the interagency than has been the case in the past” (December 2019).