Global Development Interrupted Podcast

We've Set Fire to a Bunch of Our Ships

What happens when environmental work that has taken decades to build suddenly disappears? For years, USAID supported efforts around the world to protect forests and wild

Demography Is Destiny. But Whose?

Can demography — the study of how populations grow, move, and change — offer a window into a country’s future? That’s what Leah talks about with Dr. Apoorva Jadhav, form

Democracy Is Never Finished

Democracy is never finished. No country has gotten it perfect—not even here at home. In this episode of Global Development Interrupted, Leah talks with Amy Hamelin, a fo

She Spent 16 Years Communicating for USAID. Then She Started Talking to Americans.

For 16 years, Sara Sullivan helped USAID tell its story around the world. She never imagined she’d have to explain it to Americans. When the agency was dismantled in ear

A Kid from Queens

When Jen Erie published her memoir, she expected her global development colleagues to connect with it. She didn’t expect older white men to message her saying they saw th

The Name That Got It Killed

A scholarship program training the next generation of democratic leaders was named “Diversity and Inclusion” specifically to hide it from a military dictatorship. On day

We Are the Work

Keisha Effiom sat at her dining room table in Rwanda, read the email about USAID’s final mission, and started writing. The result is a memoir — and this conversation. Ke

From USAID to the Ballot Box

Three former USAID officers. Three Maryland races. One mission: keep serving. In this episode of Global Development Interrupted, host Leah Petit sits down with Alicia C

From Learning to Leadership: What USAID Made Possible

A career spent investing in global education didn’t just build schools. It built futures. In this episode, former USAID Foreign Service Officer and Education Specialist

Unleashed: Reimagining Global Conservation After the USAID Shutdown

What do malaria rates, indigenous forests in Peru, and elephant tusk trafficking have in common? They’re all part of what USAID’s conservation work actually looked like.

Bearing Witness

What does it feel like to edit the word "equality" out of a US government document? To watch global development programs you believed in disappear overnight? Kelli Rogers

Forced Into Hope

She was a new mom, weeks postpartum, when she got fired. No warning. No plan. Just a career she’d spent 18 years building — gone. Kathleen Borgueta wasn’t supposed to be

Once More Into the Breach

He was in the room when it happened. Alex Natsios sat next to his father, Andrew Natsios — former USAID Administrator, war veteran, conservative Republican — for four an

Food Security Is Global Security

What does food security really have to do with global stability and everyday life? In this episode, I’m joined by Marian Ostertag, a former USAID Foreign Service Officer

Inside USAID’s Dismantling: A Deputy Director’s Account of the Lifesaving Memo That Changed Everything

In this powerful conversation, Ramona Godbole, former Deputy Director of Policy Planning and Programs at USAID’s Global Health Bureau, takes us inside the chaotic dismant

From the American People: What We Lost When USAID Was Dismantled

JP, a third-generation Joseph Paul from “the other Dallas” (Pennsylvania), spent over a decade working on USAID projects across Africa and beyond—from Nigeria to Banglade

When Diplomacy, Development, and Defense Worked Together

In the Season Two premiere of Global Development Interrupted, host Leah Petit is joined by Chris Wurst, a former Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State

“It’s Not Over Yet.”

In our last episode, Ben Eveslage described what happened when U.S. global assistance suddenly stopped. Programs froze, but local partners kept showing up. Community orga

Holding the Line: The People Keeping HIV Care Alive

As we close out our focus on World AIDS Day, we talk with Ben Eveslage about a path that starts in suburban Michigan and extends across Ghana, Iraq, East Africa, and beyo

Ending HIV Takes More Than Treatment

In last week’s episode, Eric Smith shared how USAID’s Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility worked to build an agency where people felt seen, valued,