On April 10, SECWAC member David Hess will share stories of the best and worst of his 48 year engagement with USAID and review what has been lost with its destruction.
Who: David Hess, Ph.D., Former USAID Foreign Service Employee
When: Thursday, April 10, 2025 – 5:30pm Reception | 6:00pm Presentation | 7:30pm Post-Presentation Dinner
Where: First Congregational Church of Old Lyme
About the Speaker:
My houseIs out of the ordinaryThat’s rightDon’t wanna hurt nobodySome things sure can sweep me off my feetBurning down the house*
David Hess is the son of Federal bureaucrats. Under the Marshall Plan, his Father negotiated the first U.S. foreign assistance programs directly with Emperor Haile Selassie in 1948. When David arrived in the Bolivian jungle in 1977 to study Bolivian peasant farmer migrants settling that country’s Eastern agricultural frontier for his Ph.D. in cultural anthropology, he landed in the middle of a USAID project where U.S. taxpayers were funding roads, water wells, and help for the pioneer communities with health and agricultural extension services. Three years later, David swore to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution as he joined USAID’s branch of the Foreign Service. He served in USAID’s regional office for West Africa living in the Ivory Coast, and then in bilateral country offices in Peru, Bolivia, Guinea, India, Rwanda, and Mozambique. After retirement from the Foreign Service he continued to work with USAID, including a two year resident contract with USAID/Tanzania. He thought he was blissfully retired in bucolic Connecticut when he was recruited and hired to lead USAID/Tanzania’s project that helped the Agency monitor program progress, evaluate effects and defects, and learn and adapt to achieve greater impact with U.S. taxpayer dollars. He and his wife Donna flew out on January 20, 2025 to land in Dar es Salaam to begin the two year engagement. The new U.S. administration froze all USAID and other foreign assistance on January 24. David’s contract was soon terminated “for the convenience of the government” along with over 5,000 contracts, grants, and cooperative agreements that funded implement partners to save lives, monitor disease outbreaks, teach farming, feed starving refugees and other desperately poor, improve education, and strengthen democratic institutions in over 100 countries. Since 1961, USAID was a critical tool in U.S. foreign policy called the third leg of a stool along with diplomacy and defense. It now appears irrevocably destroyed as the first target of the Trump/Musk juggernaut.
* Talking Heads. Songwriters: David Byrne / Tina Weymouth / Jerry Harrison / Chris Franz. 1983.