The United States Senate on Wednesday voted to confirm Isobel Coleman as USAID’s Deputy Administrator for Policy and Programming, a position responsible for guiding the overall direction of the Agency in development and implementation of policy across all of our Bureaus, Independent Offices and Missions.
USAID eagerly anticipates the arrival of Ambassador Coleman, whose leadership and expertise will be critical to further enhancing the Agency’s impact. Upon her swearing in, Ambassador Coleman will provide overall strategic guidance to the Bureaus for Humanitarian Assistance; Conflict-Prevention and Stabilization; Resilience and Food Security; Development, Democracy, and Innovation; and Global Health; as well as the five Regional Bureaus. Ambassador Coleman’s arrival will complete USAID’s shift to a two-Deputy Administrator structure, and in serving in this role she will join Deputy Administrator for Management and Resources Paloma Adams-Allen, who was sworn-in in October 2021.
Ambassador Coleman is a foreign policy and global development expert with more than 25 years of experience working in government, the private sector, and nonprofits. She served on the Biden Transition Team, leading the review of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. As Ambassador to the United Nations for Management, Reform, and Special Political Affairs from 2014-17, she represented the United States at the UN General Assembly on budgetary matters and at the UN Security Council on Africa and peacekeeping issues. She was also the Chief Operating Officer of GiveDirectly, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and her writings have appeared in publications including the Atlantic, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. She is the author and co-author of numerous books. Ambassador Coleman graduated from Princeton University and Oxford University.
We are delighted to welcome Isobel Coleman to USAID, and look forward to her contributions to the Agency in forging new and innovative solutions to international development and policy challenges.