Engineering Inc - July/August 2019 - 14

M

ark Green was sworn in as the 18th administrator for the U.S.
Agency for International Development (USAID) in August 2017.
Before joining USAID, he served as president of the International
Republican Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated
to advancing democracy and human liberty around the world. Green
is also a former ambassador to Tanzania and a four-term former
congressman from Wisconsin.
In this exclusive interview with ACEC's Engineering Inc., Green
shares his vision for the international development agency, his goal to
increase USAID collaboration with the private sector and how that
will open new markets for engineers.

ACEC: Your mantra in office has been "the purpose
of foreign aid is to end the need for its existence."
How has your experience prior to your leadership at
USAID-including in the House of Representatives as
well as U.S. ambassador to Tanzania and board member
on the Millennium Challenge Corp.-shaped your
views on development and how USAID contributes to
achieving America's global development objectives?
USAID Administrator Mark Green: On Sept. 11, 2001,

while serving the good people of northeast Wisconsin in
Congress, I painfully learned just how small the world had
become. After 9/11, I was part of the team that crafted key
development initiatives such as the President's Emergency Plan
for AIDS Relief and the Millennium Challenge Corp. (MCC),
programs that have transformed U.S. development assistance
and brought about remarkable changes in many parts of the
world. Later, while serving President Bush and the American
people as ambassador to Tanzania, I saw firsthand how those
same tools actually worked in the field and what we could do to
make them even better.
My work with the Consensus for Development Reform and
the International Republican Institute and my time on the board
of the MCC drove home the importance of monitoring, evaluation and focusing on measurable outcomes.
My more than 30 years of development experience-from
working in classrooms in Kenya, to walking hospital wards in
Tanzania, to observing polling places in Jordan and Burma-
have shown me that the American people and our lead development agency, USAID, can be an irreplaceable force for good in
the world.
But no matter where I went, no matter what I saw, I was
always struck by the strength of human dignity and the innate
desire of every human being, every family and every community
to want to provide for themselves and to build a brighter future.
What our approach is all about is trying to help our partners
get there. Everything that we do is fostering this notion of selfreliance. I believe in what we do. I wish it were not necessary. I
think we all feel that way. The purpose of foreign assistance is to
end the need for its existence. Now, I suspect we will have a lot
to do for quite some time to come, but we will always be pushing in that direction.

14

ENGINEERING INC.

JULY / AUGUST 2019

ACEC: USAID recently unveiled a new private sector
engagement policy. Can you talk about the goals of
this initiative, and how can U.S. engineering firms that
currently support USAID missions, as well as firms
interested in entering this market, engage with and
support the effort?
Green: Last December, I launched USAID's first-ever private

sector engagement policy. Its premise is that private enterprise
is the single most powerful force for lifting lives, strengthening
communities and accelerating self-reliance. The policy is an
agencywide call to action to work hand in hand with the private
sector to design and deliver our development and humanitarian
programs across all sectors, and to harness our resources to open
markets and other opportunities for U.S. businesses.
Through the policy, we are committing to assessing and
pursuing market-based approaches to achieve more sustainable
development and humanitarian outcomes. This new approach
is a significant step in reforming how we conceive, design
and deliver our development investments and humanitarian
assistance-that is, how we build the USAID of tomorrow.
Working with the private
sector and the market-based
"USAID is
approaches it leverages builds
excited about
the requisite skills, resources,
the possibilities
knowledge, local institutions and
that increasing
incentives that enable country
systems and markets to be selfour collaborasustaining. One of our committion with the
ments is to invest more through
private sector
U.S. small businesses, both in
can bring to our
Washington, D.C., and our
overseas missions. We are always
work across all
interested in attracting new partareas, including
ners, including small engineering
collaboration
and design companies across the
with U.S. engicountry.
USAID is excited about
neering firms in
the possibilities that increasour programs."
ing our collaboration with the
private sector can bring to our
work across all areas, including
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