Washington, DC
ADMINISTRATOR SAMANTHA POWER: Well, I like what the Ambassador said: there are no bosses or colleagues, there are only friends and family, and that's sort of how I feel. Monde [Myuangwa], you're such an incredible partner in this effort that we're making together to do as much good as we can in the time that we have on this earth and in these roles. And we're both really blessed to be here.
I was told a short time ago that this is the 100th swearing-in that I've had the privilege of being a part of. And building on Monde’s comments, it is a chance, not only for the audience, and for the Ambassadors, and the teams, and the countries in which our amazing people are going to deploy, to learn about the lives that bring our cherished colleagues to these points of such distinction, but it's a chance for me to learn. It really humanizes and gives a sense of what the assets and the talents and the experience and the capabilities are that our people are going out into the world to make use of on behalf of USAID’s development mission.
So I feel, really, the honor is mine. I'm incredibly fortunate to be a part of this. I don't know why somebody didn't think about it sooner in previous Administrations, honestly, and I give great credit, particularly, to the speech team who go around and make so many phone calls to try to get a 360 of the individuals who we have a chance to celebrate on these great days. And like you say, Monde, they never stop. On the 99th or the 100th, Alexious, you will always be the 100th, the level of care and curiosity and inquisitiveness, and there's so much to choose from. The biggest challenge we have in celebrating our people is knowing what to keep and what to cut, and sometimes I wish we could go on for even longer, as you’re about to hear.
Ambassadors [Bryan] Hunt and [Troy] Fitrell, it's clear you already know what you have in Alexious, but it's also clear how much you value the USAID partnership and the role that we perform in American foreign policy and on behalf of prosperity and stability and our shared values. We're just really, really glad to have individuals like you making time, I was thinking, “Wait, it’s Africa. It must be really late.” And then I remembered, “Oh, it's Guinea and Sierra Leone! It's only a four-hour time difference!” Which is hard sometimes to adjust to, but it is still late in mid-August, and you all are making time for this, showing again your priorities and the prioritization of Guinea's development and Sierra Leone's development, which we are all so committed to.
I’m joyed in welcoming Ambassador [Fatoumata] Kaba, great to have you here, Guinea’s Ambassador to the U.S., Victor Sherrif, Minister Counselor at Sierra Leone's Embassy in Washington. It really makes a big difference to us when you all are here, and hopefully you can convey back to capital just how fortunate we are to be celebrating this relationship in this way, and just how fortunate I hope you come to feel you are in having Alexious, very specifically, be the person coming into this role. Just what the doctor ordered, as we heard.
I want to thank our acting Mission Director Yasmeen Thomason, who's joining by video from Guinea. And again, those of you with your cameras off, if you feel like turning them on, we would love to see you. Those of you with bandwidth issues, no problem, keep it as it is. So many colleagues are beaming in from around the world, and I'm sure it means so much to Alexious, who has made such an impression on so many.
I join Monde in welcoming Delores, Alexious’s mom, who worked multiple jobs throughout Alexious’s childhood to give her daughter every opportunity possible. And look what she did with those opportunities.
I also want to welcome Alexious’s daughter, Sterling, who has traveled all the way from London from her home there. She is a famed drag performer and actress. You know, most of the time the kids don’t like the attention, but something tells me we don’t have to worry about that. She starred on the UK TV show RuPaul's drag race. We’re going to be giving a little speech about Sterling. She's been named Queen of the London Pride Parade. And the greatest honor and the greatest recognition is that Alexious calls her the bravest and most talented person she knows.
Welcome also to Sam, Alexious’s partner. Just to say a word about Sam – Sam is a 22-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, a recipient of the Purple Heart. He lost his leg in Afghanistan back in 2010 and was back on active duty not even a year after his injury, and has since deployed several more times. I don't know, Alexious, if we're ever going to get to your bio with all the people in your life. But an early congratulations on your well-deserved retirement from duty – what a tandem.
And I want to make sure to welcome also Sam's daughter, Ellise, and Alexious’ Aunt Beverly, her cousin Marcus, and Marcus's wife Unika. So, thank you all so much for being here. I won't, at least, Alexious might, get into her chosen family and all the parts and members of her chosen family, but that is also everyone around us, and so thank you for gathering.
Alexious grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, an only child at the heart of an extended family. From the very beginning, she was someone who pulled people together. And she was hungry to learn as much as she could, always, about the world around her.
Early on, that usually meant burying her nose in a book. She would clamber into the big magnolia tree in the family front yard to read, and then late at night, when she was supposed to be sleeping, she would sneak in just one more chapter with a flashlight under the covers.
For those of you not here with us, tears are flowing and we’ve only just started.
From an early age, Alexious was committed to helping those less fortunate than she was, and was willing to break the rules and get creative in order to try to do so. When she saw TV ads soliciting donations for hungry children, she would quietly submit a pledge under her mother's name. A week or two later, solicitations would mysteriously start to arrive in the mail, solicitations that suggested a prior commitment. And while Delores complained, Alexious would encourage her to donate the money that she had apparently pledged. Delores, I'm sorry that this is the first you were hearing about the entrapment that occurred in your house.
Delores remembers Alexious telling her, “I'm going to put my mark on this world.” And even though the family's resources were tight, Delores promised to do anything she could to help make Alexious’s dreams a reality.
Alexious began high school at Briarcliff High School in Atlanta, which just so happens to be right down the road from the high school I attended. I grew up on Briarcliff Road, no less. And yes, we were rivals. But when the school board, I remember this so well, announced plans to shut Briarcliff down, Alexious and her mother discovered an organization called A Better Chance, which places high-achieving minority students into private schools across the country. And with their support, Alexious moved to Cushing Academy, a boarding school in Massachusetts, to finish high school.
From there, it was off to Duke University and then a job at a PR firm, which improbably gave Alexious her first taste of international development. The firm happened to have the World Bank as a client, and needed a new officer to handle public outreach for a project in Uganda. Alexious knew, fair to say, nothing about Uganda, but she jumped at the opportunity. And when she returned, her experience engaging with the Ugandan people stayed with her, eventually leading her to pursue a master's degree in International Development at Georgia Tech and then to join USAID in July of 2006.
Since then, Alexious has worked in some of the most challenging development environments in the world, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sudan, Haiti, often leading efforts to bolster democracy and civil society, and often with particular focus on increasing opportunity for women and girls.
Bangladesh is a particularly good example of this. When Alexious served there in 2011, women made up only 18 percent of all members of parliament across South Asia, and faced the challenge of governing without many of the longstanding networks and templates for success that their male counterparts could, of course, count on. So, Alexious organized the first-ever conference of women parliamentarians from South Asian countries, bringing together 130 of those parliamentarians to swap hard-won advice and lessons learned. They built a community where before there had been none. And they ended up organizing a secretariat to formalize their work and continue it long after Alexious’ tenure in the region.
One colleague says Alexious has a “magical touch at winning over colleagues from every corner.” We saw that touch most recently in her post as USAID’s representative at U.S. Central Command, where her charge was to coordinate between the U.S. military and USAID across the Middle East and much of Asia. That was always an important role, needless to say, but over the past 10 months it has become even more crucial as we have responded to the horrific events unfolding in Gaza.
During this time of catastrophic humanitarian need, Alexious built genuine personal trust with the generals that she was tasked with advising, and they came to see her, and by extension USAID, because she has been the Ambassador for USAID at CENTCOM, they began to see her and USAID as a core part of their team. One Major General said he asked Alexious to join every single one of his team's meetings, even those that on their face weren't touching on development or humanitarian challenges. And if any of the other senior advisors at the other combatant commands were here, they would put this achievement in some context, because it is always challenging to break into a new world in a role where, in the past, some years ago, there were a lot of antibodies around letting civilians and humanitarians and development professionals into the mix. That has changed, but part of the reason it has changed is that when Alexious and her other senior advisors show up, they see the value that they are adding.
When Israel's security operations at checkpoints into Gaza kept aid from flowing at anywhere near the scale that has been needed, the trust Alexious had built helped the U.S. military and USAID to come together to overcome some of the extraordinary challenges being faced, diplomatic, logistical, operational, Mother Nature. We've seen all of this, of course, political, but building a temporary pier that brought in enough food to feed half-a-million people for a month is something that has been incredibly important, as have all of the efforts to get more life-saving aid into Gaza.
At every step Alexious’s colleagues remember the personal interest she took in their lives, her unfailing belief in their ability to achieve their goals. She took time to get lunch with employees of all levels and hiring authorities. She put her staff forward again and again for promotions, telling them repeatedly, “You can do this. I believe in you.” She created and then presented awards to Foreign Service Nationals, finding ways to formally recognize their critical work in USAID’s efforts. Foreign Service Nationals, for our guests, are the nationals of the countries in which we work, our local staff, and some of the most important people on the front lines of achieving development outcomes. She has led extraordinary efforts to harness the talent and potential of people from all corners of our country, the United States, to contribute to USAID’s work, something that we needed to make a lot of progress on and have begun to make progress on, but have more work to do.
Throughout her career, she had seen how too often USAID was returning over and over again to the same colleges, the same universities, the same networks to build partnerships and to recruit. And that meant that our agency and the communities that we were partnering with weren't actually benefiting from the perspectives and skills of a significant portion of the American population, a significant portion of the talent pool. Many people had diagnosed that problem before, but when Alexious joined our Resilience, Environment, and Food Security Bureau on a temporary assignment back in the U.S., she did something about it. She pushed to get the Agency to sign its first partnership agreement with a historically black University, Delaware State University, to research new ways that crop yields could be improved and economic resilience in farming communities could be enhanced.
That's where I first met Alexious, at the MOU signing, and I recognized that it was one of the most important things I would do in my tenure as USAID Administrator, was expand these networks thanks to the leadership of Alexious and some of her colleagues. Alexious wasn't done with Delaware State. She saw that she had, I hope she saw that she had, a willing partner in the front office. And every two weeks we would get a new proposal for a new HBCU. So, we did a tour of the country. We went to Tuskegee, we were reminiscing, we went to Florida International, the largest Hispanic-serving university. And she poked and she prodded and she nudged. And these are the prerequisites to progress, by and large, nudging and prodding and being relentless in the way that she has done. And all of that culminated in USAID’s flagship Minority-Serving Institutions Program.
It has led to a slew of meaningful partnerships. We're working with researchers and students at Tuskegee on global food security; with Alcorn State on development in the Caribbean; and with Morehouse College on climate change and conflict resolution. I could go on and on, but thanks to Alexious, we are benefiting from the expertise of people at these institutions, expertise that was there for the taking but that because of, again, the habits that we had acquired over a long period of time, we just hadn't broken out of those familiar patterns until she nudged us and pressed us into doing so.
The great thing also is that this is the gift that will keep on giving, because every student at those Universities that gets exposure to what USAID is doing gets that tingle in their tummy, asks about where they sign up. Maybe they're in the queue for a Payne fellowship now because they heard somebody from USAID come and describe the work. But we are going to build a workforce here that truly looks like America, and it will be in no small part thanks to Alexious’ efforts. So thank you for that.
A colleague who worked with Alexious said that the only challenge is that we would have liked to have had two of her. And we do a lot through our Progress Beyond Programs agenda that is not in the formal job description, but cloning is not something we have yet figured out how to manage. But we will get on that task.
We are lucky that in Alexious’ new post, she is already contributing her talents to the people of not just one country, but two: Guinea and Sierra Leone. So we really need to clone her for this assignment. Both countries have extensive natural resources with some of the world's most valuable metal and mineral deposits, including green minerals like bauxite that are needed to power the clean energy technologies of the future. These resources have incredible potential to help fuel the region's economy and fund basic services that citizens so need, basic infrastructure for the Guinean and Sierra Leonean people. But, of course, too often, when such resources exist, the wealth that could have been generated has vanished into corruption, into graft.
The United States really wants to work with our partners in these two great countries to encourage transparent, fair, and sustainable extraction of natural resources, always in accordance with the rule of law, and to continue to provide alternatives to unscrupulous investment from those actors that are seeking to extract those resources without truly investing in the people. This can be a great boon to economic development and human development and social development in these two countries, or, again, without the right systems, it could be something that benefits only the very few.
We're working alongside our partners to take on the challenges that the people of Guinea and Sierra Leone face, from poverty to illiteracy to a limited capacity to manage dangerous disease outbreaks. In Guinea, through the President's Malaria Initiative, as we heard, USAID has contributed to a nearly two-thirds reduction in malaria prevalence between 2012 and 2021. And credit, of course, goes to the Guinean people, above all.
In Sierra Leone, USAID funding has contributed to an estimated 40 percent reduction in maternal deaths since 2013. And I saw firsthand in both Guinea and Sierra Leone what the people of these two countries can do when they put their minds to it when it comes to health issues, as they fended off what could have been an even more vicious Ebola epidemic by bravely putting their lives on the line for their fellow citizens. We are working to help people in these countries turn their aspirations for free and fair democracy into lived reality.
Obviously, in Guinea the fallout from the 2021 coup continues, and together with our partners, we are strengthening civil society and seeking to increase economic opportunity. There are glimmers of hope. Guinea's justice system just reached a long-awaited verdict in the trial of former President [Moise Dadis] Camara, holding him and several of his military officers responsible for atrocities committed during the Stadium Massacre of 2009. Again, when I was in Guinea I met people who've been affected by that, and I can imagine what this verdict means. Accountability and the end of impunity, of course, essential across the board, for all citizens.
Just recently, USAID provided technical assistance for the drafting of Guinea's new constitution, which transitional authorities publicly shared two weeks ago. So obviously, getting Guinea on the road to electoral democracy and to having those strong checks and balances is something that we love to support the Guinean people in doing.
At the same time in Sierra Leone, the Agreement for National Unity signed last fall has shown promise for reforming elections. So we are supporting the Electoral Reform Committee as it strengthens election systems so that all of the country's people can have confidence in them.
Alexious, leading this work amongst continued challenges is not going to be easy, but you have a stellar team, teams, on your side. You have people here in the Africa Bureau who have your back. She has been spending recent days going door-to-door with the people who have pools of central funds, whether on democracy and human rights, or on climate, or on food security, on clean energy. She is bringing a lot of savvy about how USAID works.
Education, I should have mentioned, she’s spent a good amount of time with the education team. But really, she is going to be a champion of the people in these two countries across USAID, and will really try to mobilize as much support as she can. Your family, just a phone call away. Lots of visitors, it sounds like. And most importantly, you have the heart and the smarts and all the experiences you have honed since you were that little girl up in that magnolia tree aiming to make your mark on the world. You've already made a hell of a mark. We can't wait to see what you do next.
Thank you so much.