Global Development Leadership: Exit Interview with Henrietta Fore

Henrietta Fore has worked to champion economic development, education, health, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief in a public service, private sector and non-profit leadership career that spans more than four decades.

As the first woman to serve as Administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development and Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance, Fore has paved the way for future generations of leaders. Since January 2018, she has been at helm of United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), leading efforts that help more than 300 million children in over 180 countries and territories, providing nutrition, health, education, water, and sanitation, and protecting rights. Very few people have seen and experienced what she has.

On the eve of her retirement, Wilson Center President and CEO Ambassador Mark Green, who also held the position of USAID Administrator, spoke with Henrietta Fore. 

Selected Quotes

‘Each of the initiatives we have has the ability to change the future’

"Each of the initiatives that we have, I think have the ability to change the world of the future because we invest in the future, because we invest in children. But they have that capacity so reimagining education is a great goal for our world, it is the best ladder out of poverty, to get a good education. It is portable, it is something that if we can give it to every child and person, it would be a great gift.

I think that is also extremely important when you look around the world to think about that issue of public-private partnerships and what could be benefits for America. Well, I think education is just at the beginning of an era and American companies would do well to invest in education and in distance learning. We have much to give but it could be like the Green Revolution. So, I'm very proud of it, I hope that the American industry will stay with it. Microsoft has been a good partner with a learning passport, you and MarK have been very focused on migration and on refugees. This is a great benefit when you can keep up with your home curriculum, in your home language, as a refugee or a migrant—because we all need skilled young people. And if you can do that, if we can give you the platform—it was in a public-private partnership with a U.S. company—that would be great.

But we also have great generosity, so UPS for example lent us planes so that they would fly goods to Venezuela up for the people in need there. American companies can be very generous and they can give us in-kind support, and as you know the Gates Foundation along with USAID and Rotary have been helping us on polio. Without that work as a team, polio would not be close to extinction in the world. So, these are great public-private partnerships and I hope that they will continue. And then lastly, we have had a big initiative on culture change. Culture, as you know Mark, is very difficult, but the world woke up with the Me Too movement, and with racial equality, and we are a very big multinational multi-ethnic multi religion organization. And we have been focusing on becoming a respectful and kind workplace that we carry it into our homes, in our offices, and into our countries. And it's changing things, we are close to our values now, of care, respect, integrity, trust, accountability, and sustainability. So, I hope all of these will continue; we all build on each other's work but UNICEF is a wonderful organization and I've been very proud and very privileged to be able to serve."

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Re-imagining Education in the Future

"So, in the future what I’m hoping we can do more of is to reimagine education. I think it could be for the world like the Green Revolution, I think that we could bring a quality education to every child in the world, and I think it would be within the national curriculums but also outside of school. Because, now everyone's carrying a cell phone so I would hope that we could do that and with the technology that lies in America on lower satellites and Wi-Fi and connectivity, I think we can connect every school in the world. And if we could, then the half of the world that is not yet connected could be—and this would be just a great change for the world. And I think it would propel our civilizations forward in a way that few other investments could, but it would be a public-private partnership, just like the creation of vaccines."

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