Michael T. Harvey Sworn In As USAID Mission Director to Nigeria

USAID Press Office
Thursday, September 5, 2013

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Michael T. Harvey was sworn in as the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Mission Director for Nigeria. In this capacity he will oversee USAID’s vast portfolio of programs in agriculture, democracy and governance, economic growth, education, and health.

Prior to the assignment, Mr. Harvey served as Mission Director in West Bank and Gaza. A career Foreign Service Officer, Mr. Harvey also served as Mission Director to Serbia and Montenegro during a remarkable turnaround in U.S.-Serbia relations that occurred after the election of the Serbian government in 2008. Prior to Serbia, Mr. Harvey was Deputy Mission Director in Iraq during a shift of U.S. assistance programs away from large scale public infrastructure programs toward more conventional economic reform and capacity building efforts.

As Deputy Mission Director in Jordan from 2004 until August 2006, Mr. Harvey implemented one of USAID’s largest and most successful economic and political reform programs in the world. From 2000 to 2004, Mr. Harvey was the USAID Representative to Tajikistan. In the wake of September 11th, Mr. Harvey led the dramatic expansion of the U.S. assistance programs in Tajikistan. Mr. Harvey also served as the Deputy Director of the Program Office in Haiti for five years, playing a leading role in the design and management of one of USAID’s largest assistance portfolios in Latin America. As the Director of the Office of Health and Nutrition he managed the Food for Peace program, then the largest in Latin America.

During the early to mid-1990’s, Mr. Harvey served as the Director of the USAID Food for Peace program Ethiopia. Mr. Harvey helped guide the phase out of what had been the world’s largest food aid program while transitioning the country to self-sustaining agricultural production. Prior to that assignment, Mr. Harvey was stationed in Washington working as the Desk Officer for Ethiopia, Sudan, and Somalia for USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance, where he led U.S. relief efforts to the conflict-ridden Horn of Africa.
Prior to joining USAID, Mr. Harvey worked in the Office of Press and Public Affairs for the White House Conference on Small Business.

Mr. Harvey holds a Master’s degree and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin. Mr. Harvey was born in California to U.S. Air Force parents and traveled extensively before making Texas his home.