Ruth Levine, a CGD senior fellow and vice president for programs and operations, has been named to a leadership position at USAID, the primary U.S. development agency. Levine announced the move on CGD’s Views from the Center blog last Friday and began work Monday as USAID senior advisor for evaluation and the director of evaluation, policy analysis, and learning.
Levine joined CGD soon after it was created in the fall of 2001 and helped to shape the Center’s unique approach to making the world a better place: conducting independent research to devise practical new policy solutions to reduce global poverty and inequality, and then pushing these ideas into action.
“Ruth has been at CGD almost since its beginnings and her generosity and wisdom are now built into the DNA of what we are and how we operate,” said CGD president Nancy Birdsall. “She has been a font of ideas and a constant and wise partner to me, bringing soul as well as smarts to CGD management. We at the Center wish her every success in her challenging new role.”
Levine is the third senior staff member at CGD to accept an influential policy role in the U.S. government in recent weeks. In January, Steve Radelet, a major contributor to CGD's work on aid effectiveness, became senior advisor on development issues at the U.S. Department of State. Soon after, Sheila Herrling, who led CGD's Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance program, was named vice president for policy at the Millennium Challenge Corp.
Birdsall has welcomed all three appointments. “The ultimate goal of our work is to inform and influence development policy,” she said. “I am proud of these recruitments to key roles in the Department of State, the Millennium Challenge Corp., and now USAID. I am confident that my former colleagues will be a huge asset not only to their new organizations but to the broader shared effort to improve the design and implementation of U.S. policies that can have profound effects on the lives of the world’s poorest people.”
Levine, a highly regarded development economist and an expert in particular on global health and education, has been closely associated with some of the Center’s best known successes. These included her proposal for the creation of an advanced market commitment (AMC) for vaccines, which led to a $1.5 billion pilot AMC for a vaccine to prevent pneumococcal disease in developing countries, and her research on the reasons for the dearth of rigorous impact evaluations, which led to the creation of the multimillion-dollar International Initiative for Impact Evaluation or 3IE.
She is also a co-author of a recent pair of influential CGD reports on development and adolescent girls, Girls Count: A Global Investment and Action Agenda and Start with a Girl: A New Agenda for Global Health.
An independent, non-partisan research institute, the Center had cordial ties with senior development policy officials in the administration of President George W. Bush. Todd Moss, currently a CGD senior fellow and vice president for corporate outreach, served in the State Department as deputy assistant secretary for Africa during the Bush administration.
Levine paid tribute to CGD in her parting e-mail to the Center’s staff:
“Leaving CGD is incredibly difficult. The Center, my professional home for eight years, is a place where great things have happened, and where the potential for more is unlimited. For me, it’s been a joy to come to work (almost) every single day, and a privilege to be part of this place … [where] we are all working with common purpose and uncommon passion—not a marching band, but a jazz ensemble.”
She added: “Like Sheila and Steve, I’m looking forward to being the beneficiary of knowledge and nudges from CGD.”