Indian American Sonali Korde Takes Over as Assistant to the Administrator of USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance
- Having worked for the U.S. agency in various capacities since 2004, she has a background in legislative affairs, national security policy, infectious diseases and emergency humanitarian response, and global health.
Sonali Korde was sworn in earlier this week as the Assistant to the Administrator of United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA), the U.S. government lead for international disaster response. Administering the oath was her boss, USAID Administrator Samantha Power. BHA “monitors, mitigates, and responds to global hazards and humanitarian needs, and promotes resilience by preparing communities for disasters before they strike, and by helping people recover and move beyond crises,” according to the USAID website.
The Indian American most recently served as deputy assistant to the Administrator for BHA. During her time there, she served as deputy to the U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Humanitarian Issues “charged with leading U.S. diplomacy efforts to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” according to her USAID profile.
Before joining BHA, she served as deputy chief of staff for Policy in the Office of the Administrator at USAID, and prior to that as acting deputy assistant administrator at USAID’s Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs. Having worked for USAID in various roles since 2004, she has a background in legislative affairs, national security policy, infectious diseases and emergency humanitarian response, and global health. She has also served as senior policy advisor on the Ebola response in Eastern Congo as well as deputy director for coordination on the COVID-19 response.
As director of Global Health and Development at the National Security Council (NSC), she “supported all aspects of the U.S. government’s global health portfolio and linkages into broader development, security and bilateral diplomacy and cooperation goals,” USAID said. She supported NSC’s coordination of the interagency Ebola response, other emerging infectious disease responses including MERS and Zika, and the Global Health Security Agenda. Prior to joining the NSC, she was a USAID Foreign Affairs Fellow in the Office of Congresswoman Nita Lowey, Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee and Subcommittee for State and Foreign Operations.
Before that she worked as a senior technical advisor for the President’s Malaria Initiative in USAID’s Bureau for Global Health. She was responsible for managing integrated malaria and public health programs in Africa and Asia in coordination with multilateral and bilateral donor partners, WHO and other UN organizations, NGOs, and government counterparts.
She has an MA in International Relations from Yale University and a BS in Economics from New York University.
After getting her master’s, Korde spent a summer serving at a rural development center in northern India, alongside Kshama Metri, a community doctor and leader. When the summer was over, she took a consulting job in New York. Three years later, after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, she decided to forego management consulting and pivot to global health. She eventually moved to D.C., where she currently lives with her husband and their three children.