USAID internal memo details personnel, organizational changes for feed the future

The Obama administration's Feed the Future program and "the bureau that runs it will be reorganized," according to an internal USAID memo from March 15, Agweek reports.

In the memo, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah informed his staff "that Bill Garvelink, who has held the titles of deputy coordinator for development and assistant to the administrator, will be leaving," Agweek writes. "Julie Howard, the executive director and CEO of the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty, will assume Garvelink's title of deputy coordinator, Shah said, adding that a new position, assistant to the administrator within the Bureau of Food Security also has been established. It will be filled by Paul Weisenfeld, who has been USAID deputy assistant administrator for Latin American and the Caribbean."

In her new role, Howard will "focus on communication, donor and (nongovernmental organization) engagement, interagency coordination and initiative-wide strategy and policy development, as well as overall (U.S. government) Feed the Future budget management and monitoring and evaluation. Day-to-day operational authority and accountability will remain with the bureau," Shah said in a later announcement.

"Feed the Future's leadership is supposed to have an overall coordinator and two deputies coordinators ... Though no overall coordinator is in place, Shah told his staff that the office of the coordinator would be strengthened with 'a small team focused on communication and external reputation building, donor and NGO engagement, interagency coordination, initiative-wide strategy and policy development,'" Agweek reports. 

Shah also announced two additional key personnel changes and said the Bureau of Food Security will be arranged into four teams to focus on the following: country strategy implementation; market access partnership; research, development and thought leadership; and resource management, planning and evaluation (Hagstrom, 3/29).