Washington, DC
ADMINISTRATOR SAMANTHA POWER: Thank you, Monde [Muyangwa], for those words, really generous of you, and for your leadership. It speaks to how peripatetic you are, that when I saw you on the screen, I had to text my Front Office here and say, “Where is Monde?” And they were like, “She’s in the AF [Africa Bureau] conference room, not far.” But thank you for getting out and about, and yourself for sitting down with people, and for always advocating so fiercely on their behalf.
Ambassador [William] Popp, thank you – I know we are swearing in the right person, because your description aligns so thoroughly with everything we know about Daniele. But, as you indicate, the collaboration between USAID and you, fundamentally the one team approach, is so vital.
At USAID, we have done so much work in that country, notwithstanding some of the impact and skills and talent of our incoming Mission Directors – they get to learn even more, and so do the country teams, about all the USAID leaders have done in their past lives, so that is a very exciting part of this. But not only do the Ambassadors and Country leaders get to hear that, but so too do the family members and the loved ones of our honorees, and that’s always really cool to get to watch – kids learning about their parents in a new way or even life partners and spouses. So that’s one reason among many, Monde, that I always show up for these really moving occasions.
We also have two Counselors in the audience – our former Counselor and close friend of Daniele’s, Chris Milligan, welcome back to you. And our current Counselor, Clinton White, who is barely walking today having spearheaded USAID’s first three-on-three basketball tournament, and Clinton delivered as he always does, an impeccable performance.
Our greatest thanks of all goes, of course, to Daniele’s family – her husband, Joachim, and her two daughters. I got to meet both Joachim and her two daughters, Sasha and Mika, who are extraordinary young women doing great things there in Uganda, making great friends and diving into their academic pursuits. Beaming in – as we also heard – we have her mother, Leocadie, her brothers, Rudy and Jean Roger; and her sister, Christine.
Let me say in front of everyone else what I said to Joachim privately, which is just thank you, thank you, thank you, for rolling with the ebbs and flows and always being willing to lead, to inculcate a resilience and curiosity in all of your new posts, as you all roam the world – from everything we hear, Joachim, your support of Daniele is unwavering. Being there for the family for many early mornings and late nights and sudden moves across the globe – it is really in large part because of you and your daughters’ support that we are all able to celebrate her in this exciting new role today. Sasha and Mika – again, you’re troopers, but I love the spirit you bring to every new enterprise. It’s inspiring, and I am going to pass it along to my own kids and encourage them in the same way.
So now, to Daniele, the main event.
Daniele was born in Rwanda, where she lived as a young child until her family moved to Kenya and then, at the age of 14, fatefully for USAID and Team America, to Ohio. Daniele quickly became a fan of all things related to her new state, and as someone who immigrated to America – Pittsburgh in fact from Ireland – I had exactly the same approach, which was to learn the local currency, which was sports. So for Daniele, it was the University of Dayton Flyers’ basketball, Ohio State Buckeyes’ football, and Cincinnati Reds’ baseball teams. For me, it was the Pirates and the Steelers there in Pittsburgh – it was the way of fitting in.
Daniele watched, growing up, her neighbors work two or three jobs to make ends meet – and that is something that has stayed with her throughout her career as a public servant. As she works to allocate American tax dollars to people in need around the world, she always retains a keen understanding of just how hard-earned these dollars were – and she dedicated herself to investing those resources as effectively as possible.
Daniele stayed in Ohio after graduation to study medicine and human rights at the University of Dayton. Then she went on to earn a Masters in Public Health from Emory University in Georgia and began a career of international service.
She worked on public health issues in Mali and Senegal before landing her first job at USAID as a health and nutrition officer in Ethiopia, where a cousin – a much-thanked cousin – introduced her to Joachim, who, I’m told, she almost immediately knew was “the guy.”
Joachim would join Daniele as she went on to be named the Deputy Regional Health Office Director in Ghana. This was an incredibly big job leading a team of staff across West and Central Africa to manage a health portfolio of nearly $100 million across 21 countries, and covering everything from maternal and child health to malaria to HIV/AIDS. During this time, Daniele initiated the first-ever dialogue between nine West African governments and the private sector on expanding access to health services through mobile technology – this ultimately led to the establishment of five fully-equipped health vans that could travel the distance and reach the most remote and secluded areas, improving access to the use of health services.
And here, Ambassador, I would just flag for you, our mantra here, at USAID, is progress beyond programs. So there’s all the resources that are allocated that we seek to spend efficiently and seek to leverage, turning every dollar into more as best we can. But there’s also the practice of development diplomacy and thinking through what are the impacts we can secure well beyond the dollars that we spend. And Daniele, as we just met, is giving me an earful of all she thinks can be achieved well on top of the generous budget that the Congress gives us. And that progress beyond programs mantra which is new I suppose as a slogan at USAID, the practice is prevalent as we know from your past lives, but it’s rare to meet a Mission Director who so lives it and breathes it. And we can see it in all of her past missions, the importance of doing what you are appropriated to do and then figuring out how you can do so much more.
After that, Daniele went to become USAID’s Health Director in Madagascar, where she, quite literally, helped stop a plague.
Yes, you heard that right – a plague. In Madagascar, the bubonic plague is an annual event as farmers burn their fields and the rats that often carry the disease flee. And usually, that plague is the kind that ravaged Europe so long ago, which attacks the lymph nodes – and which, mercifully, is now treatable with antibiotics. But there is also, as some of you know, a pneumonic plague, a version of the plague which attacks the lungs. It is the more dangerous form of the plague because it can spread through the air, making it highly contagious – and it is treatable, but if the treatment does not come within forty-eight hours, the disease will almost certainly cause death. So while Madagascar was used to an annual response to bubonic plague, this pneumonic plague was a terrifying new threat.
Daniele, schooled in public health responses and aware of the danger, worked very briskly. With the Minister of Health on speed dial, having cultivated relationships as she does everywhere she goes, Daniele and her team worked closely with government officials and key development partners, including the UN, including of course our own CDC to equip community health workers to quickly identify, treat, and contain cases to stop those cases from spreading out of control. And they worked, again progress beyond programs, with mobile telecommunication companies in the private sector to establish hotlines and track rumors of outbreaks, and this allowed the Mission to surge support to communities that might be at risk. Soon, they got the outbreak under control collectively, and Madagascar had the infrastructure and processes in place to respond to future outbreaks of plague and other diseases. Of course this became looked at as invaluable preparation during COVID-19.
And because that accomplishment wasn’t enough for her, during her years in Madagascar, Daniele also trained for and completed a marathon. Lots of spare time, used well.
When Daniele was finished, she then decided to take on an even greater challenge than stopping a plague – and that is navigating the bureaucracy in Washington. She knew that getting experience here, at Headquarters, would make her an even stronger and more effective advocate and doer in her work, so when the opportunity arose for Daniele to detail to the Office of the Counselor, she jumped right in.
This was as USAID was taking on an ambitious reform effort. We knew we needed the best possible talent driving that push, so we turned to Daniele – and she jumped right in, helping Counselor Chris Milligan build up our diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility efforts, as well as advance the Agency’s most significant reform in decades. Her legacy is still felt to this day – she organized the first-ever Deputy Mission Director Workshop, an event that brings together over fifty emerging leaders from Missions around the world for a week of skill-building and networking.
And, of course, in the good news and the bad news, her talent was so evident that she was plucked. Just eight months into her work with us, the National Security Council does what the National Security Council does, which is talent spot and recruit one of our very best, bringing her on as Director for African Affairs. She embarked on a grueling year of twelve-hour days, spending late nights and early mornings leading U.S. national security policy for Central and Southern Africa, the Indian Ocean, the Sahel, and the African Union.
During her tenure at the NSC, she helped secure a doubling of the funding for the Prosper Africa Initiative, which is, of course, our flagship initiative for increasing trade and investment between Africa and the United States, what most of our partners most want. From her decades working on development in African countries, she was well-positioned to understand and advocate for Prosper Africa’s importance. Since 2019, Prosper Africa has already generated some $86 billion in trade and investment that builds prosperity on both sides of the ocean.
Now, Daniele will take the helm at our Mission in Uganda at a critical time, when a traditionally close partnership that has helped the region become healthier and more prosperous is at risk as political and civic space rapidly close. New policies are undermining the human rights of Ugandan citizens – like, of course, the Anti-Homosexuality Act. And the Mission, including with Daniele and Richard [Nelson], while Richard was leading and Daniele was Deputy Mission Director, really has handled this effort and nurtured our team with great sensitivity and conviction. And it’s really hard to bring both in the way that you have, and I really credit Richard, you, and Daniele, for the way you have led that effort and the whole team for stepping up.
Daniele has been leading in Uganda as our Deputy Mission Director since 2021. Already, she has overseen and managed nearly 200 staff and a budget of half a billion dollars across all sectors. She has worked really hard to get our extraordinary local staff the resources and support they need to push for positive change in this challenging operating environment. And she has been the driving force behind the Mission’s efforts to develop a strong and forward-leaning strategy to support human rights defenders and independent media, and to target corruption; and this has really paid paid off, as we have seen significant increases in DRG – democracy, human rights, and governance – funding for the Uganda mission.
We know Daniele will keep getting results for the Ugandan people as she officially takes the helm. Under her leadership, we will support the Ugandan people as they work to secure a government that responds to their priorities and respects their dignity. We will work together to improve their healthcare system, partnering with Ugandan communities to improve the capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to health security threats. And we will support Ugandan citizens in building resilience to the changing climate, particularly through greater private sector investment, which we will work together to drive the hustle.
We need someone at the helm of our Mission who knows Uganda and the Ugandan people, someone who does not shy away from a challenge, someone who believes wholeheartedly in the Mission of USAID – someone like Daniele.
We are really excited, Daniele, to see what you will do in this role. I was saying to Daniele it’s really tempting to look at a Mission Director and say, “Well, if I were Mission Director, I’d!” And well, now’s your chance. And you get to work with one of our very best in Richard, but you are more than ready for this, and the Mission is incredibly fortunate to have you in this role. And with that, let us make what has been happening now officially official, and it’s my pleasure to swear in Daniele as our new Mission Director to Uganda.
