Rose and Katie unpack the fallout from the Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID and what it means for global energy investment and energy access. Drawing on their experience in US government, they explore the ripple effects of these cuts, the impact on local and international partners, and the broader shifts in development assistance. They also reflect on the role of public service, the evolving nature of US engagement abroad, and how to navigate this new reality.
Show Notes
- Katie and Rose are both on Substack, sharing their thoughts on energy, development, foreign aid, and more. Explore their latest pieces below, and subscribe to Aid Interrupted and Kibao.
- “Will Chris Wright Recommit the U.S. to Fighting Global Energy Poverty… Or Just Talk About It?” by Katie Auth
- “The Danger of Abstraction: From Climate Discourse to the Federal Workforce,” by Rose Mutiso
- “Why Trump’s Attack on Science Funding Could Backfire,” by Rose Mutiso
- “Let’s Be Honest About U.S. Aid,” by Katie Auth
Transcript
[00:00:00] KATIE AUTH: I’m Katie Auth.
[00:00:07] ROSE MUTISO: And I’m and this is High Energy Planet, the podcast from the Energy for Growth Hub about new ideas to solve global energy poverty and the people behind them.
[00:00:15] KATIE AUTH: Today’s episode is a little different than others you may have listened to. There’s been so much going on in us politics. That’s impacting the world of global energy investment and energy access. Most specifically the Trump administration. has moved to dismantle USAID, the U. S. Agency for International Development, which implemented programs like Power Africa and provided significant support to energy projects around the world.
[00:00:39] And the ripple effects of that are impacting other countries and Washington, D. C. and all sorts of things that we care about. So Rose and I were trying to think about what guests we could bring on that could speak about this. And then we thought, well, why don’t we just do an episode ourselves? We’ve both spent significant time inside U. S. government. We’ve seen USAID and the U. S. Congress and State Department from the inside and the outside, the good and the bad. So we have very little planned ahead for today. We’re just going to check in with each other and see where the conversation takes us. And surprisingly, Rose and I have been So busy that we actually haven’t had a real conversation about this yet. So I’m also just really excited to hear what Rose is thinking. So let’s get into it.
[00:01:31] Hey, Rose.
[00:01:32] ROSE MUTISO: Hey, Katie. I’m excited to finally be doing a solo episode. It’s been a while like, I don’t know, a year, last season, I think.
[00:01:40] KATIE AUTH: Yeah, it has been. I’m excited too. I wish we had a happier
[00:01:43] topic to talk
[00:01:44] ROSE MUTISO: I know.
[00:01:44] KATIE AUTH: why don’t you start, because I think fewer people probably realize that you had pretty extensive experience inside the government.
[00:01:53] ROSE MUTISO: Yeah, that’s that. You know, it’s interesting. I often forget that I, know, spent, I really really, cut my teeth in policy within the US government. And since then, so much of my focus has been on african issues or technology issues that, that, experience has receded a bit, but this, kind of chaotic time has really brought it back to me and I’m resurfacing those experiences and how much they meant, uh, meant to me. So, and for those of you who don’t know, so I started off like my first job after my PhD. So my postdoc was in the U. S. Senate. Um, the AAAS, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a bunch of other scientific societies. In my case, American Institute of Physics, , sponsor, PhD scientists to have experiences either in Congress or in the executive executive branch. And the idea is giving scientists exposure to policy, and how policy, impacts their science and and vice versa.
[00:02:45] KATIE AUTH: It’s such a great program.
[00:02:47] ROSE MUTISO: It really is. It really is. And, you know, it just really blew my mind that this existed. It really is one of the big transformative, experiences of my life being thrown in from the lab into a congressional office. I worked for Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, and I was managing a portfolio that covered energy innovation, , policy in some environmental policy within the US And globally.
[00:03:09] KATIE AUTH: And it’s worth saying that Chris Coons is one of the leaders in the Senate on these issues, for
[00:03:14] ROSE MUTISO: Yes, definitely. And I think that was a big part of the draw for me is that he’s a member who’s really interested in Africa. And I think part of the kind of grand plan if I had one, then was I was really trying to think about how to pivot my science to more kind of not just society facing, but also Africa facing, which was a bit tricky because I was kind of doing really hardcore physics. And I was trying to connect the dots from that to the rest of the world and especially Africa. So I did that for a year and I learned a lot. I got to work on bills that were passed into law. I learned a lot about science, technology, energy policy within the US. but at the same time, Power Africa and SDG 7 were really kind of gaining traction. And so I got to work on the Power Africa legislation on the Hill when that was moving and jumped from that into the US Department of Energy Um, senior fellow working on in, you know, what used to be this international climate and clean energy office. And the whole point of this office was to try and connect technical knowledge within DOE and its national labs. to support what Department of State and USAID, world Bank, and other partners were doing around SDG 7 because everybody was suddenly, you know, this is like a world of, you know, development economists or, uh, international relations people who are certainly confronted with energy as part of the development agenda. And so the DOE ended up being this great connector of knowledge on energy technology, and that was perfect for me because I was able to kind of do, the thing that I’ve always wanted to do, which is to bridge. complex technical stuff with development in Africa. That’s when I learned how to be the person that I am now, which is somebody kind of using evidence to Katie, what about you? How did you end up at USAID?
[00:05:04] KATIE AUTH: I had just come out of grad school and I had this combination of academic and work experience that was a little bit about international development. I’d studied climate impacts. I’d started working in DC on international renewable energy policy. So I really, I was searching for a way to bring those threads together. And then when president Obama launched power Africa with support from Senator Coons, as you were just talking about, and other, , congressional leaders. It seemed like the perfect place for me, it kind of brought all of my interests together in one place. And so I joined the Power Africa team in 2014 when it was just being stood up and I worked there until 2020. So I spent two years at USAID under Obama and then four years under President Trump.
[00:05:58] ROSE MUTISO: real quick, why energy? Just based on your background, is there A specific reason why power Africa specifically or energy? I guess we often ask our guests this because energy is a bit of a wonky thing.
[00:06:13] KATIE AUTH: Um, I’m a pretty wonky person, generally. Um, but yeah, I had, after I’d graduated, , I had moved to DC and I started working at a think tank that was focused on international renewable energy policy and trying to figure out how countries could scale their clean energy supplies. And to me, I was coming in with very little energy expertise. I was not an engineer. I was not someone who had specialized in the technicalities of energy, but it seemed like such a forward looking way to address both poverty and climate challenges at the same time. and I just, I knew I didn’t want to spend my career, saying no, no, no, don’t build this. It’s bad for the climate. Don’t do this. It’s bad for the climate. It was so much more empowering to be able to say like, yes, let’s build stuff. Let’s go out and invest and let’s just do it better. So that was how I got into energy.
[00:07:10] ROSE MUTISO: no, this is really cool. I love this and I think we’ve spoken to many guests who have, we’ve I think this this world has sucked in people with such different backgrounds.
[00:07:18] KATIE AUTH: Mm hmm.
[00:07:19] ROSE MUTISO: and I you know, and it’s, um, right off the bat, like, it’s, it’s it’s not like an obvious topic to pick, but I’ve been really impressed just by the diversity of backgrounds that have been pulled into the energy space. And I do think that Power Africa and the Obama administration’s elevating this alongside SDG 7 was a big watershed that has brought all of these people into this space. Mm
[00:07:43] KATIE AUTH: I mean, that’s kind of the point of power Africa. So. folks who don’t know, it’s coordinated by USAID, but it brings in State Department, the Department of Energy, Department of Commerce, EXIM, what is now the Development Finance Corporation. So in the same way that ROSE MUTISO is talking about attracting all different sorts of people, Power Africa was trying to bring in folks from all across the U. S. government who are thinking about energy in very different ways. Commerce Department is out there trying to help U. S. companies do energy business. USAID is thinking about the development perspective. You know, there’s, there’s so many different pieces of this, and a lot of it was Bringing those pieces together and figuring out how do we use our tools more effectively and more efficiently. And that’s the part of it I really loved is like putting that puzzle together and figuring out how can the U S government be better and more effective at helping either a company or a country do what they want to do. And that was kind of my job every day.
[00:08:41] Wait, Rose, can I just ask you one
[00:08:43] question? So, So, long before you started working at the U. S. government and came to the U. S. for your grad studies and your college, like, you grew up in Kenya. I was curious, what was your perception of USAID as a, as someone growing up in Kenya? And then how did it change once you started, you know, living and working in the U. S. and working for the government?
[00:09:12] ROSE MUTISO: That’s such a great question. So, um, and I’m casting back. So, I, when I was really young, I, had two, two interfaces with this world. One indirect and one extremely direct. So the indirect interface was just, um, the 80s and 90s were a very chaotic time in Africa. Uh, just just Kenya was in like a terrible financial crisis, extremely difficult financial situation. Um, uh, just, it was really, really hard. Uh, I just remember. Every day in our lives, like we, you know, I felt the sense of the poverty, even being educated people, like what we ate, how we lived, it was just, uh, just a universal, uh, economic contraction that impacted everyone, um, and at the same time, there’s a lot of political chaos, civil wars and whatnot, and so I remember watching the TV and really experiencing development assistance through our humanitarian lens. Through all of the food aid that was going out
[00:10:20] KATIE AUTH: seeing
[00:10:21] images of it on
[00:10:22] ROSE MUTISO: the USAID logo. Also we had a big refugee population within Kenya, camps. I knew some refugees personally who attended my primary school, and so I could kind of, and Kenya was like the, HQ still is, I think, of the UN, a big UN, um, UNHCR, uh, office, and so I think that not just on TV, not just in the images, uh, uh, not just in refugees that I went to school with and, um, lived close to, I think, I think I really saw the humanitarian arm of development assistance, and that’s what I understood aid to be, um, and just this, uh, this, force that is helping people in crisis in the U. S. Um, the other way that I experienced, and this was like the extremely direct way I experienced development assistance, though I don’t think I understood it to be that, and this is where, again, this humanitarian versus broader world of development assistance, uh, split is, is, gets tricky that we’ve been talking about, is my parents, actually, so my mom was a civil servant in the Ministry of, um, Environment and my dad was a geography professor, uh, but he worked working on desertification and kind of this is like proto climate adaptation stuff.
[00:11:37] And so they were like, my mom was doing like, you know, she was One of the technical officers working in the Kenyan position for the first real, uh, conference and stuff like that. Like my dad was working for regional bodies on like EGAD, which is this kind of regional organization. Um, uh, international organization in Africa was one of the experts around our desertification strategy, blah. blah, blah, And so like that part, which is kind of, I think that the world that I continue to live in was This is this was all around me. This is what my parents did is that they were working on international environment, kind of early day climate, uh, um, policy analysis research. And it’s only kind of coming full circle as I’ve grown up that I’ve understood that to be part of development, if you know what I mean.
[00:12:27] And so so I think that this is, I did, I did. really experience. and it’s interesting because my parents were experts in that world when I was young. I was experiencing Kenyans, i. e. my parents and their colleagues, being really at the table. So I remember like my during the Montreal Protocol and this was a lot of those negotiations were happening in Kenya because UNEP, UN Environment, what it’s called now is Headquartered in Nairobi. And so, my parents were like at that table. And so I saw them as really active participants behind the scenes. I’m sure donors were paying for the
[00:13:05] KATIE AUTH: Mm hmm.
[00:13:06] ROSE MUTISO: for their participation. You know, the stuff that I can see now behind the scenes, there was probably a lot of development assistance that went into supporting this Kenyan capacity. But as a child, I just saw my parents going to the UN headquarters and shaping the ozone layer. Policy, the global, So for me, it was like this very empowered, so there was kind of this like humanitarian lens where it’s like Africans are suffering and we can get our act together and I guess these nice white people are sending us food. and then there was the, my parents are like part of the development machine, but I couldn’t really, I didn’t have sight into the machine if that makes sense.
[00:13:38] I think that my childhood being very proximal to the development machine, but not having sight into, I’m sure the imbalances and all of the, the issues that we talk about as is, a big reason why , I’m, I’m so focused on this idea of African agency because I felt like I, when I was very young, I, that’s what I saw, I didn’t see kind of shenanigans in the background, I didn’t see any indignities that senior Kenyan officials were subjected to, which I’m sure they were at the time, or, or consultants writing, I didn’t see any of that, I just really saw, I had so much pride in my, my, my parents as being part of this, You know, force for, like, representing Kenya, using the expertise to help Kenya shape a global agenda.
[00:14:22] And, and, and, and obviously now, like, the curtains have been drawn, and now I can see how lumpy that process is, but I still really, really believe in In that sense of like Africans in the same way that Americans, American, not just funding, but American talent and the American federal workforce can be a force for good in the world. I really also see in parallel African experts being a force for good in the world as well.
[00:14:48] ROSE MUTISO , so Katie, what, just kind of flipping it back around to you, what was your experience of USAID and just growing up? Was that even on your radar? Was that a thing that you even? Understood to exist.
[00:15:00] KATIE AUTH: It definitely was because I was always really, really fascinated by international relations and foreign policy and global politics. Like, I was a very, uh, nerdy kind of globalist kid. And, you know, in the, growing up in the 90s, like,, the, the American economy was booming and this was like the height of like post cold war us global leadership.
[00:15:25] KATIE AUTH: And there was something very like. Romantic and appealing about, okay, we’ve done so well for ourselves. We’re the richest country in the world. How do we give back? How do we make other people’s lives better? And, um, that was appealing to me. And then nine 11 happened and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
[00:15:47] And I, along with a lot of other people, my age, I think soured on us power because we saw the ways in which it could be so destructive and so divorced from the ideals that, that we were aiming for and I was in college at that point. So I was studying international relations and, and global politics. And I actually, this is funny, but I, I was like, I will never work for USAID. Like, because I was reading all of this, all of these critiques of the agency and how all the problems with development that we know about, right, the dependency and the, the. Unintended impacts on local economies and the lack of, um, local involvement and the Beltway bandits and like all of this stuff. And I just saw it as this anachronistic imperial U S soft power thing that I wanted no part of. And then coming out of grad school, I went to work for USAID and I. I was inside it now and I saw a just how genuinely the people who work at USAID care about the work that they do and making the world better and it’s not about a cold hearted geopolitical strategy.
[00:17:10] ROSE MUTISO: Mm-hmm
[00:17:11] KATIE AUTH: and the sacrifices that foreign service officers make. And I got to, this was before I had kids. So I actually would spend months at a time in various African countries working at the USAID missions. And so I got to know all of the local staff and work alongside them. And I just, it totally reframed my understanding of the work that USAID does and made me realize like, yes, it has flaws. It’s not perfect. It’s it, but it is. It’s by and large an amazing force for good and, and it’s complicated. And so now like working with you and living in this world of kind of thinking about these issues from the outside, like I revel in that nuance because I think we need to keep working to improve it, not dismantle it.
[00:18:02] ROSE MUTISO: That’s awesome. Also a great segue to the current situation because, you know, just today I was reading about, the latest news about Power Africa being disbanded, the entire team getting laid off. And so we’re at this really almost surreal. Moment where a lot of the programs that you and I have been a part of that have been very invested in that are part of this broader mission, , that we’re focused on are just kind of being dismantled piece by piece very rapidly.
[00:18:28] So, in this conversation, I guess, we wanted to just start with trying to focus a bit on what this means Not in abstract terms, like, you know, defunding and, dismantling, uh, but really concretely what it means for the people both on the ground and, and, and, people like us who’ve been working on this who are caught up in the storm. , having worked, um, at AID and, um, on Power Africa, like, what do you, what does this mean concretely for the partners and the humans on the ground? What does a dismantling of a program like Power Africa mean in, in real terms?
[00:19:04] KATIE AUTH: So Power Africa, it’s different than a lot of the programs that have rightly gotten the most media attention in the sense that there’s not, you’re not seeing the same types of like dire short term tragic. Outcomes that you’re seeing in global health, for instance, when programs get shut off overnight and suddenly people can’t access vaccines or can’t receive the care that they were supposed to be getting, that stuff is horrendous on a whole other level.
[00:19:39] Um, but in the power Africa world, you are seeing countries who had. You know, gotten commitments from the U. S. government that the U. S. was going to help them design a certain policy or was going to help them build out a plan to do X, Y, or Z to build a solar facility. Suddenly the U. S. is gone and there’s no certainty around whether they’re coming back. Whether they’re going to fulfill their obligations, you have tons of private sector energy companies who had been working with the U. S. Had some in some cases signed contracts to do work or to receive assistance. They’re also left unsure of what’s happening. so I think right now the biggest outcome is just chaos and uncertainty around .
[00:20:27] Whether people can trust the U. S. government at all, and the longer term implications will obviously be, a withdrawal from the types of support countries were getting around their energy systems that will no longer be provided.
[00:20:41] ROSE MUTISO: I, like the point that you raise about how,
[00:20:44] kind of the really broad umbrella of all of the activities that fall under development assistance. Um, and, and you’re right that the part of This whole space that is most legible in human terms is global health, and I, and I I really do believe that that is one of the most important kind of parts of the crisis that we have to stem now. This is real people’s lives at risk as we speak. but as we move farther in the spectrum of activities that are not as easy to translate in terms of People or, you know, in terms of like everyday people will understand, I’ve really been reflecting on this because we’ve often struggled within our work And I remember even when I was part of the Power Africa interagency, it was like, is it connections? Is it energy services? Is it like, what is the thing that we are? What is the goal? What is the thing that we are, working towards? And, really do hope that this process, uh, maybe one of uh, one silver lining, and we’ll talk about this more, about what, what we can take to move forward, is helping us kind of forcing us to reflect on how we think and talk about what we do.
[00:21:54] Do, do you agree with that?
[00:21:55] Mm
[00:21:58] KATIE AUTH: to a lot of media and reporters in the last few weeks about this, and they are also trying to find a human way to talk about energy, and it is hard. And I had one reporter say, Okay, Power Africa is no longer doing the work that they were doing to electrify rural health clinics. Does that mean that women are giving birth to babies in the dark? And my answer was just like, Well, yes, absolutely. Women are giving baby birth to babies in the dark, whether power Africa exists today or not. Like that is the reality of energy poverty that we’re trying to solve in the first place. Yeah, I think bringing it back to those very human stories, but also remembering that USAID is not the only actor in this space and it doesn’t solve the problem. Like whether or not USAID exists or not, energy poverty is still a dire crisis. And so we also have to figure out how to like move through this moment and keep resources going to that challenge, even if USAID as an institution no longer exists.
[00:23:04] ROSE MUTISO: That’s, that’s such a great point. And I think another thing that this is reminding me of is when you’re under attack, when you’re in defensive mode, it’s easy to fall into, like, really elevating your thing. because, you know we’re all fighting for survival. And
[00:23:16] KATIE AUTH: putting yourself in the center
[00:23:18] ROSE MUTISO: yeah, and I think, I think it’s, I’m quite impressed by you being able to convey this to, this humility to a, to, a to a journalist when like we’re all kind of fighting for our time and we want our thing to be elevated that like our thing might not be the most important thing in the the mix or the grand scheme of the world, but it’s kind of part of this,
[00:23:38] um, I guess tapestry of activities, interventions, thinking that kind of add up to the whole.
[00:23:47] KATIE AUTH: Yeah. I’ve been thinking a lot about this and I’ve. Tried to articulate this in various ways, but I actually think it’s crucially important. Like, yes, I’m a former USAID employee who believes that USAID makes mistakes, but by and large is a force for a lot of good in the world. But I think it’s really important that we not make protecting U-S-A-I-D the institution. The goal of the fight, like the fight, is to ensure that the US stays. An engaged positive force for good in the world, stays focused on these issues, has an impact, doesn’t pull away from, you know, emerging economies, doesn’t turn into a fully transactional entity. And that has to be the focus, not the institution, even though people feel very attached to it, but I don’t think that’s the way to win the long game.
[00:24:42] ROSE MUTISO: I see that, but let’s just talk for a moment about the people that make up the institution, which is again a difficult thing, especially as people who are like, you know, used to be part of these institutions And can be defensive about the institution. And we know a lot of the people in those institutions still, and it’s difficult to, a convey. what these people do, be, part of the narrative is this kind of characterization of, of, of federal, the federal workforce is self interested people, the swamp, like there’s all of this negative characterization. And then when we defend, our work or the work of these institutions it seems like we’re being self interested. Um, and, and, and, and then that kind of is also in conflict with this idea of trying to also bring attention to and elevate the dedication of the federal workforce, the sacrifice that people make. You know, it’s kind of where
[00:25:39] it’s such a difficult thing to talk about when we’re we’re trying to center the, goal and the work, but the people that are advancing this goal, who are, organized within these institutions, it’s important. And it seems right now, it’s, it’s, it seems difficult to to center what it means to have your life and your, and your, career uprooted your livelihood, everything, because, you know, it seems like it plays into that narrative of, you know, you just be self interested, like swamp dwellers.
[00:26:12] How, how are you, Because you’re in the kind of swamp, physically live in DC.
[00:26:17] KATIE AUTH: the swamp.
[00:26:18] ROSE MUTISO: Um, and even if you’re not working in the federal government right now, , and, and you’re like a little bit more recently, you were in the government more recent than I am, but you know, a lot of your kind of friends, family members are part of the federal government. How are you navigating this tension around wanting to focus on the goal, but just not wanting to let people completely diminish the humans in the federal work, workforce?
[00:26:46] KATIE AUTH: Yeah. I think this is really important. And I also want to stress like my, my point about not centering, protecting the institution is, is separate from how I feel about the people and what I want to do to protect the people. You’re right. Like almost, almost all of my friends, my entire social and professional network are either. They’re at USAID, they’re at state, they’re federal employees, they’re contractors, like there’s an ecosystem of people who have devoted their careers and their lives to this. And I think, I think, you know, there’s been some hesitancy to talk about the human impacts of this in DC because you’re like, Oh, like who wants to hear a bunch of whiny federal employees complain about their jobs, but like, think the most important thing to talk about is the cruelty with which this was done, right? You could imagine an alternative universe where the Trump administration wanted to dismantle USAID, but they came in and said to the staff, Hey, USAID, guys for your service. You’ve done really good work. You’re patriots. You’ve made sacrifices. Thank you. We’re dismantling the agency because it no longer serves our purposes, but we’re going to work with you to make sure that we ramp all the programs down responsibly, we’re going to give you time to figure out your next steps. Like that would have been a humane approach to this and a responsible approach and would have been a completely different conversation, but the way this was done, only was there no thoughtfulness or care for the people working at USAID or what would happen when these programs were disbanded overnight. It was worse than that because I don’t know if probably folks listening who aren’t in the, in the, the US policy sphere, like might not know this.
[00:28:38] There has been such a targeted dehumanization of the people who work at USAID. It’s bizarre and cruel and completely over the top calling them Marxists and America haters and, and I think there’s a, there’s a purpose to that it’s to. To demoralize them, to dehumanize them, to otherize them, and to make it harder for the rest of the country to come to their defense because they have been labeled as almost traitorous. And so, it’s a really, um, it’s horrible. It’s horrible what’s happening. Um, I don’t know, like, what has it been like for you to watch that from a, from a distance?
[00:29:22] ROSE MUTISO: Um, similarly, and I think I’ve been thinking along the same lines about dehumanization as a tactic and a tactic that is increasingly rampant in kind of polarized politics that we live in right now. That’s always step one is you dehumanize and then, and then, you know, everything
[00:29:39] KATIE AUTH: easier to do whatever you want.
[00:29:41] ROSE MUTISO: uh, You know, sometimes I think just treating people with contempt, I guess contempt is kind of it was one of the words I was thinking of is it’s, it’s, it’s, it is a cruel, uh, political strategy, but it works to your point. It works. Um,
[00:29:54] KATIE AUTH: I was kind I was just going to say, like, I was thinking about it in terms of like a bully. What does a bully do? A bully picks on a weak target. And USAID in this context is weak in the sense that it doesn’t have a super strong domestic constituency that’s going to fight for it. And they know that. So they know that there’s, it’s an, it’s easy pickings. It’s not something that the majority of Americans. even know about, and if they do know, they probably don’t care very much about it. And so you pick on USAID first, and the cruelty with which it’s done, I think also is about sending a message to other agencies and other federal workers that, like, don’t mess with us. Like, this is what we will do to you. And so I think living in DC, like, that’s the, the, the, fear and the, yeah, the, just the, the, tension that people feel right now is that sort of bullying. I remember when we were at power Africa, we made a really big effort to do road shows around the country where we would talk to us energy firms and technology firms and talk about why African markets.
[00:31:15] to them and why the U. S. government was an ally in helping them, um, reach new markets and expand and innovate. And, you know, there are stories in the press now about. American farmers who have USAID as one of their biggest buyers.
[00:31:36] You know, I think we, yeah. And there’s just, there’s tons of ways that USAID provides real tangible benefits to Americans, but we haven’t been particularly good at talking about them or, or talking about them in a way that kind of captures people’s attention. And as a result, development has been something that’s like. kind of hidden away, the niche world of people who focus on it, care a lot about it, but, but otherwise, it’s, you know, full of misconceptions, a lot of Americans think we spend way more on it than we do, we spend less than 1 percent of our budget, so that’s the other ridiculous thing about the Doge attempt is like, they’re trying to save budgetary resources by cutting literally the smallest part of the budget, like, um, but
[00:32:21] ROSE MUTISO: yeah, no, I totally agree. I also wanted to of flag the professionals, the public servants who work in country, who are nationals of the countries that we partner with. And that’s a huge community, and that’s actually a community I’m very close to. I’m from a family of public servants. You know, My sister works in global health, my mom worked in international and regional environmental policy and, and, and I think those are also really, really dedicated, committed, talented people and are right now, their lives are also getting appended and, As unpopular and as remote as it might be, I really, really want to widen our, our, kind of scope of concern, like these are real people too.
[00:33:06] KATIE AUTH: No, I mean, why would that be unpopular? I’m so glad you brought that up because I don’t think a lot of Americans realize that easily half of every USAID mission overseas is local staff. They’re working side by side with Americans. In many cases, they’re there over the long term. They’re there for years and years.
[00:33:23] The Americans come and go because they’re foreign service officers who are maybe in country for two or four years at a time. It’s the local staff that have all of the. Kind of permanent knowledge and technical capabilities and political understanding. And they are a full fledged member of the team when you’re at a mission.
[00:33:44] And everyone, every American at USAID values their expertise and their insights so highly. And you’re right. Like we don’t talk about them. And, and often in many of these economies, like the, the jobs at USAID or at other diplomatic posts, they’re. They’re relatively well paid, you know, so it’s, it’s a huge part of the economy that gives a lot of people a sense, like a form of stability and of resources that are, that is now going to be taken away.
[00:34:11] ROSE MUTISO: Yeah, we should really continue to also try and put those people in the narrative best we can. Well, certainly in, in in in, our, within our circles, where do we go from here? And, you know, because I think everything that we’ve discussed so far as kind of truly and genuinely as we feel them and they ring so true, I think it’s important for us to, um, reinforce that and to talk about this and to center ourselves and the value of people and the value of the federal workforce to kind of fight this dehumanization and all that.
[00:34:39] But constructively, maybe. What, What, do we do? What is our strategy? This, this conversation so far is not going to convince Elon musk or to change his ways. Um, like, what, where do we go from here? And I want to start with maybe The, kind of tactically, the republican allies, Or you know, where the because, you know, until literally like a month ago or whatever, there used to be quite a lot of bipartisan support for development aid, and not just for development assistance, but also just for the U. S. ‘s presence. In the world as a force In the world, So, let’s start with that group. Where are they now, the Rubios of the world? What do you think they’re thinking? and, and And, how do we reach this group?
[00:35:31] KATIE AUTH: Rubio, as you know, is now secretary of state. So he is basically overseeing this to some degree. He supposedly looked project by project at every USAID thing that got canceled and he was supposed to do a personal review and make a decision. And Charles Kenny calculated. If that were the case, how fast he would have had to do that. And it was like, do you remember what it was? It was like
[00:35:59] ROSE MUTISO: Yeah, I know. I
[00:36:02] KATIE AUTH: there’s no
[00:36:02] ROSE MUTISO: Yeah, there’s no possible way. Even if you feed this to ChatGPT, that would be great. Just the data entry would be, um, yeah,
[00:36:09] KATIE AUTH: So, yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people are disappointed in. Secretary Rubio, because he was always such a strong and outspoken, proponent of American engagement overseas and of development assistance as part of a broader posture. Republicans are scared of the Trump administration, and I also think there’s a certain political calculation being made because, as we talked about before, there’s not a strong constituency that’s gonna, you know, force their hand on USAID. They’re maybe making a decision, this is not the hill we die on. And I think for a lot of the folks inside USAID, that’s deeply painful because it’s like, well, I thought we were more than a political calculation to you, like we’ve spent our entire careers doing what we thought was really good, important work. And so there’s a, there’s a huge feeling of like being abandoned, being let down, being discarded. And I think that’s a lot of the pain that folks working in this space feel right now,
[00:37:20] ROSE MUTISO: So right now, I completely agree with all of that and I’ve, I’ve, also kind of been going back and even back to the time when I was in Congress and like where there was such bipartisan support for this work and just, what a flip flop. and it is, it is quite, disorienting. One other thing I have been watching because, you know, I’m based in London these days and following a bit of both UK and European, , politics, and obviously, without the same chaos, cruelty, dehumanization that we’re seeing in the U. S., um, kind of dismantling of foreign assistance, there is a shift away, a shift towards, oh, there’s, there’s there’s a, yeah, there’s.
[00:38:05] KATIE AUTH: development budget by a lot.
[00:38:06] ROSE MUTISO: Yeah, so the, the UK is retrenching their, I mean, it went from 0. 7 percent of GNI to 0. 5 during Boris era and now it’s going, the Labour government is kind of bringing that. down to 0. 2%, probably effectively will be less than that. other European countries like the Netherlands are also like completely restructuring, reframing, retrenching their aid. So, uh, So maybe, I know, and the U. S. case is an edge case, and that’s why, um, I think a lot of our conversation so far has been like, why, why? it’s It’s, so, such an extreme, um, Uh, meaningless, uh, way to go about things. So, so I thought that maybe it might be useful to think about from kind of more, like, somewhat good
[00:38:48] faith actors, like what we’re seeing in the UK. What is, for us to reflect on, um, I, I just thought this might be a, a slightly more kind of productive exercise in reflecting on how attitudes towards development assistance and aid. a changing. And so I know in the UK and in Europe, there’s one, I think Ukraine has been a major focus , in terms of trying, there’s a lot of, and this is true in the US too, but there’s a lot of, redirecting of a lot of aid towards Ukraine. And this is a big European issue, very central to european interests vis a vis Russia and all that. But I think there’s also incredible domestic pain. So cost of living, energy bills, you know, there’s just like, and you know, even the EU is retrenching their like climate policies, and they used to be really aggressive because everyday people are really feeling a lot of pain. And so, even in contexts where there’s, I think, maybe broadly a bit more sympathy for development interests, less kind of cruelty and dehumanization of the space and the sector, there’s still a retrenchment. So I was hoping we could talk a little bit about how the sector responds to this looking inwards that is happening everywhere in the U. S. extremely, but everywhere in general. What is, the strategy to keep this work going in this environment?
[00:40:09] KATIE AUTH: to again, separate the humanitarian assistance and global health from the energy investment stuff, because it’s very, very different. And I actually think that the energy investment work is ultimately, I, I hope the administration is going to realize they’re going to come to regret having destroyed power Africa because that type of. Investment focused, private sector focused work is exactly what they say they want to do more of. And I think there are lots of avenues left to continue building the energy investment work. There are other actors, there’s M300, there’s the MDBs, there’s, you know, there, there’s, I’m, I’m hopeful that we can actually use this moment. As a chance to address some of the longstanding problems that we’ve all known exist in this space. Every sector has deficiencies and limitations. I think in the short term in the U. S. For the next four years, while President Trump is in power, finding explicit ways to demonstrate to the administration how investment in global energy security. Has direct benefits to the U. S. It’s, you know, it’s it’s uncomfortable because we’re kind of forced into thinking in this very transactional way. But I think that’s an argument that can have huge resonance in this administration and could help build back. Some of this, some of this programming, I saw the news about the UK’s budget and, and my first thought was like a realization of how interconnected all of this is because my understanding is that, you know, that decision is driven in part by the US pulling funding out of Ukraine and Europe needing to step up and put more of its resources into defense and therefore, Pull back on development. And so it’s kind of impossible to look at any of these in isolation. Right.
[00:42:07] ROSE MUTISO: Yeah. And I totally agree. And I, I think that it’s, it’s, it’s, uh, as I, said, I, and as you’ve, um, mentioned as well, the Ukraine factor is huge. And actually, a lot of U. S. aid currently, development assistance is also directed towards the Ukraine. And this is like a big global crisis for many reasons,
[00:42:21] KATIE AUTH: USAID was doing a ton of actually in the energy sector, helping rebuild and protect transformers and energy assets. Yeah.
[00:42:30] ROSE MUTISO: More broadly, there’s just. So much internal pain, in countries in the global north, and so, , as much as we, in the development community or the international kind of global community shy away from speaking in transactional terms, I think you’re right. This isn’t really the strategy because, these investments have to be put alongside all of these other, fires that governments , are tending to right now, And as I said, like right now, you’re, you know, Europe, like environmental activists are like really disappointed because Europe is retrenching a bit on its climate goals just similarly, but also, you know, really are facing a lot of pressure to bring down energy costs for people in European countries to make European industry more competitive. And so, basically, I think it’s it’s important for us to kind of start to speak the language. That gets that gets that gets us on the agenda. And this is kind of the reality we live in, even even in places where they’re kind of more rational actors making the decisions.
[00:43:31] KATIE AUTH: agree, but I also feel so torn here because like the Trump administration in particular, but again, this is something that you’re seeing replicated all across Europe and other parts of the world, like this move towards seeing the world as a zero sum game and everything is transactional and everything is about. Like you want to adopt some of that language so that you can actually talk to these decision makers, but I don’t want to accept that as the way that the world works. And so I also think there’s like, there’s like a longer term need to remember that at least I believe, and maybe this will come off as like incredibly naive, but people want to believe that they do good in the world, that their country does good in the world. People like believing that the U. S. is out in the world providing food and keeping people healthy. And like, there’s a, again, it’s to your point, like there’s a human element that I don’t think we can lose. I don’t want to like adopt this, this dog eat dog mentality.
[00:44:35] ROSE MUTISO: I know. So this reminds me of two things. One is, and I’ll hold one, which I’ll get to in a second, is actually I’m going to resurface conversations we’ve had about minerals, where we’ve struggled with the same,
[00:44:46] KATIE AUTH: minerals.
[00:44:47] ROSE MUTISO: same conversation. I’m going to hold that for a second, because we’ve kind of struggled with this, like, You know, kind of having to, like, assume this posture of geopolitical war and who owns a mineral.
[00:44:59] But I’ll hold that for a second because one other, one thing, um, that this, the human element reminds me of in another part, kind of, another hat I wear is following, um, AI
[00:45:11] and kind of tech stuff. And there’s a conversation there about human flourishing, um, and you know, and what it means to
[00:45:18] be
[00:45:19] human. In the world, you know, like what does it mean when machines and technology, um, are encroaching on many
[00:45:28] aspects of human life and not just the stuff that is like your job has been automated, but just like what does it mean to be a person? What is it? What is
[00:45:35] creativity? what is art? You know, like all of this stuff. And I think that, some of those conversations, I think, as I’m
[00:45:42] kind of Listening to you and in this conver in this discussion with you are, have resonance with those ideas that there’s more to being human than just technocratic, rational stuff that even if AI can solve a lot of can add a lot of value and we have all of these technical solutions, it’s this kind of like human X factor. And I think the same as I play here with aid that this and development assistance and just pro social, being good citizens in your country, in the world, there’s something there that human beings want that we should probably explore more, that it’s, it’s there.
[00:46:18] KATIE AUTH: Well, and like, it’s such an interesting, collision of, tech and humanity in the Trump administration’s current approach, right? Because Doge, the effort to dismantle the federal government is being led by Elon Musk, and there’s a whole, coalition of people coming out of the tech world and the AI world and coming into government with the assumption that there is no humanity, that it’s all a technocratic budget exercise, that there is no value to anything that they cannot kind of instantly. See, and I like, so I think you’re seeing that play out in a really dangerous way and I think you’re right to point out. Uh,
[00:47:05] ROSE MUTISO: It’s all interconnected and I, but I think that, as with all things, like, you you really start to hit up against the real world at some point. so this is this is something that no one can escape, so we’re gonna see that more, but I think that you are right that for us to just completely abandon Language about values, humanities and just pivot to this transactional, framings is, is, is, not the solution that we need something in between, um, and which, but a kind of slightly different counterpoint is we, this minerals conversation we’ve been having about, why is it that, you know, when we talk about African minerals, critical minerals in Africa and how Africa can get more value from their natural resource endowments is often intentional. Um, I’ve, I’ve had some conversations about this with various people including you,
[00:47:49] where,
[00:47:49] you know, somebody pointed out and I’ve been reflecting on this that, uh, When we talk to US government people, it has to be in that, like, like Africans are just this pawns, they’re kind of abstracted out and their pawns in this geopolitical game. I’ve had some conversations about this with various people, including you, where, you know, somebody pointed out and I’ve been reflecting on this that, you know, having interests is not the issue, that if the U. S. has interests and China has interests, the gap here is that african interests are suppressed or are not articulated or whatever, like, that, you know, that, that, and I think we were talking about this when we wrote a piece for, we wrote a piece about Ruto visiting the U. S. and the big state visit we had last year with President Biden and President Ruto, and this idea of Kenya kind of ascending to the big leagues, being a country with interests, being a country Having a bilateral with the U. S. where, like, this is what we want on the table and, vice versa and and maybe sometimes, these, that these geopolitical games are, are, not inherently bad, it’s just having the African counterparts kind of having their own, you know, strategy and, and are kind of participants in the game because we’re, there’s, there’s a little bit of a gamification, , in, in, in how different countries Operate in the, in the, in the global landscape.
[00:49:01] KATIE AUTH: Yeah, and I think there’s actually something to be said for the
[00:49:05] benefit of a U. S. approach that’s a little more open about its own interests, right? Like, because clearly those interests have always been there. They’ve always been part of the rationale behind the work that USAID does, the work that all of our foreign policy is structured around. That wasn’t always openly acknowledged, and the Trump administration is very explicit about it, and I think a lot of countries actually welcome that in some regards, of like, finally, we can have a conversation That is about our true interests in this space and to your point about African interests kind of being suppressed it is important that we also talk about there’s been a lot of writing and reflection coming from African thought leaders since USAID was dismantled about the real risks that come with dependence on a donor like USAID and the long term damage that that has done to economies and to global health systems and, and that this might actually be a moment in a way that, that prompts, more countries to figure out, okay, we can no longer depend on the U. S. and how do we kind of stand up for our own interests in this moment and carve out a more sustainable path? And I think that’s a good thing.
[00:50:22] ROSE MUTISO: And, and, and actually, It’s not just, I think, the the suppression of your, your interest is not just, in this kind of financial dependence, but actually one thing that has been really interesting is, um, a lot of countries are so dependent on expertise and infrastructure from donor countries. And so just kind of taking back some of that. So like, even if you free up more money from your budget to , help, fill some, some, of the gap in, say, funding for ARV, medications, for HIV patients, or for I don’t know, vaccine delivery or whatever, like, actually, what is emerging is that a lot of countries don’t really have the mechanisms to, and the infrastructure for distribution, because that’s all, that has all, been outsourced to the donors, and so I think that this is really a time also to possess not just financial, the financial means, but just kind of build out some of this infrastructure.
[00:51:19] KATIE AUTH: Yeah. And going back to your point about the local staff who have been employed by USAID, like there are brilliant technical experts who know everything about the sectors in which they work, whether it’s agriculture or energy or water delivery. And those people I hope are snatched up by their own governments or by local organizations doing this work, because I think that will be. It would be such a sad, devastating loss if those local people who have been employed by USAID until now are forced to kind of move out of this space because they don’t feel like they have another opportunity to apply their skills. Like, there’s such depth of, of expertise available. So we have to, we have to use it.
[00:52:08] ROSE MUTISO: I think that’s, this is a good point to try and close on, which is where do we go from here? So we know that U-S-A-I-D development assistance. is a real force for good in the world, uh, not just, just in terms of inherently, but also in terms of all of the other rational reasons we layer on, like U.
[00:52:28] S. interests, blah, blah, blah. But we also know that the development assistance machine is flawed and has issues. Um, and we are kind of both fighting for survival in a very, Difficult context, but trying to, at the same time, articulate and build a new vision for how we can be better. So, uh, that’s a lot.
[00:52:50] It’s a lot for the whole community to do. We are part of that community. And so I was just hoping maybe if each of us can in turn try and reflect on, okay, what, what we think for ourselves or for others in the community is one productive thing that we can do to move this vision forward. So, starting with you, Katie, and then I’ll go after.
[00:53:10] KATIE AUTH: I guess I’ll give two answers. One is hyperlocal. , I’m in D. C. obviously, tons of federal staff, and one of the most moving things to watch during this last month has been the many creative ways in which the D. C. community and the Fed community has stepped up to support each other. So just yesterday, there were a group of moms passing around a list of young federal workers who’d just been laid off who want to babysit.
[00:53:41] And it’s like, if you need a babysitter, like use a federal worker who’s lost their job. And there’s, if you remember weeks ago, there was an announcement that all of the foreign service officers stationed around the world would be sent home within 30 days. And these are people with kids in school and families, and they don’t have houses in the U. S. And overnight. The DC community rallied and had a spreadsheet of all of the homes and families who were willing to take in a foreign service officer. And so my first thing is like, if you’re local and even if you’re in another part of the country, but, but no federal workers like support them in this time, reach out to them, get them coffee, check in with them, like take care of them on a human level, because it’s, it’s very, very scary and very destabilizing.
[00:54:29] And then my bigger picture recommendation and this. Maybe very general, but like over the longterm, my focus is on trying to make sure that the U S that, that people around the world know that Americans are not universally transactional and focused on dominance and that, that, that does not reflect the full vision of how Americans see themselves in the world. So anything you can do to. To talk about this, to write about it, to read books about foreign policy. Like I think we need more Americans engaged in this conversation so that it’s not just a wonky elitist thing for D. C. folks, but it’s something that Americans as a whole think about in their daily lives more often. And that’s a big ask, but I think that’s like the project for the next decade or however long it takes.
[00:55:25] ROSE MUTISO: I really like that. So I think I’ll kind of, uh, borrowing from you, I’ll also give answers. And the first for me, I think, something that has been, So disturbing to me is just a sense of kind of going cynicism in general, but also kind of diminishing public service is that I really I really grew up with a real I, I just, for me, public service is really in my blood and I, I just, I just, I really want to do my bit to make sure I am talking to young people around the world, including in Africa and in the US. I think a lot of people like these kind of narratives where I’m going to make it big, I’m going to be rich fast, like being a tech bro, like Elon becoming billionaire is what you do. Otherwise, you’re a sucker. or I think these narratives are quite entrenched now. And then like like there are all of these issues that. I’ve been keeping an eye on both in Africa and in the U. S. and around the world. That are steering young people away from, I think, uh, really being centered on the human experience, really being centered on public service, like all of the things that I think the Elon Musk types would call being a sucker,
[00:56:31] KATIE AUTH: Yeah.
[00:56:32] ROSE MUTISO: you know, so I really want to model that and I’m really committed to, to just doing my bit to steer young people towards, I think, these really valuable that, that it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, It’s great to be this kind of person who
[00:56:50] KATIE AUTH: I will just say, before you say your second one,
[00:56:53] like, I’ve been struck by, I think people who don’t have touch points with civil servants and people working in government, and they maybe have a very cynical view of it. And this narrative has taken over of like, civil servants are lazy, civil servants are elitist, civil servants are wasting your money.
[00:57:15] Like I don’t think people realize how genuine that devotion to public service is in the people who work in these spaces. Like, it is genuine. It is deep. These are people who are committed to working for presidents of any party. Like, they truly believe in, in, in the role that they’re playing in a democratic government.
[00:57:37] And I think, like, don’t let the cynicism
[00:57:41] make you think that that’s not
[00:57:42] real. It’s, it’s, It is
[00:57:44] very real.
[00:57:45] ROSE MUTISO: It really is, no, and so I think like, yeah, let’s,
[00:57:48] let’s, I, I think the both of us hopefully can really model that and, and try and, you know, try to push, beam that, that message in whatever we can. So I, I really, really, I’m committed to that. I think the second thing for me is. I’m, I’m, I’m, I, I really want to think about how I can do my bit to, uh, work with African talent, uh, of all types in ways that can really kind of elevate me.
[00:58:22] Africans in the global stage. So I think that in this new future that we’re entering in, uh, where the global aid, development assistance and aid landscape is shifting, I think is, uh, for better and for worse, uh, mostly right now for worse. I think that there’s a little bit of a vacuum, like we were saying earlier, around you know, there’s been a dynamic for decades about how poor countries, Africans and other countries engage with rich countries, you know, a little bit paternalistic, a little bit of the recipient side, um, and, and this has led to this aid dependence.
[00:58:57] It’s led to, um, a lot of capacity, capacities not really being embedded, um, institutions being embedded, uh, thinking research expertise. And so I think I’m, I’m, I’m really, really interested in. What I can do to kind of work on the kind of kind of African slash kind of what used to be the donor kind of the donor recipient side to kind of think about how we can be more integrated as peers in the global system.
[00:59:24] And yes, we still have extreme challenges. We have, you know, extreme poverty, humanitarian crises that will require, um, um. Traditional, uh, humanitarian aid in the same way that you know, like, even in a place like Ukraine right now, really, in that position, this could happen anywhere where your entire society could be upended and you need to, uh, uh, the traditional forms of aid really make a difference for people on the ground.
[00:59:52] So I think that’s I don’t, I’m not going to be naive to say that these extreme Um, Challenges don’t exist where, like, we just really need to find a way to plug this humanitarian hole in, in aid. But at the same time, I think I’m really interested in, in, in what we can do in kind of the part of the broader development assistance umbrella that interfaces with, say, global business, global policy, global diplomacy, those, you know, and who are the experts on the African side that are hopefully reentering this global system as peers.
[01:00:29] KATIE AUTH: I love that.
[01:00:32] ROSE MUTISO: All right, so Katie, I’ve really enjoyed this conversation with you. I think it’s been very cathartic. So thank you. And thank you to the listeners for listening to this Public therapy, session
[01:00:42] KATIE AUTH: Public therapy, yeah.
[01:00:45] ROSE MUTISO: I hope it’s been, I hope that you’ve been equally therapized. Katie, this has been really fun. I’m really glad we did this. Me too.
[01:00:57] KATIE AUTH: That’s it for today’s show. High energy planet is a production of the energy for growth hub, matching policymakers with evidence based pathways to a high energy future for everyone. Find out more at energy for growth. org and share your questions and thoughts with Rose and I at energy for growth on X or linkedIn.
[01:01:14] ROSE MUTISO: And if you liked today’s episode, be sure to rate and review the podcast and tell a friend about us. Audrey Zenner is our senior producer. Join us next time for High energy Planet.