Chloe Schwenke, PhD (Founder)

With its origins in a research project, Unlock USAID has grown into a collaboration of interested social innovators who share the common goal of reinventing how the United States does international development and humanitarian response. Led by Amanda Arch and Walter Kerr, their movement’s reach is extensive, and they have achieved significant level of credibility […]

The Center for Values in International Development (C4V) is almost 5 years old, but it is only now dawning on me – C4V’s founder and current president – that my two separate worlds as international development practitioner/ethicist, and openly transgender woman, have more than a coincidental overlap. This awareness, however, itself has come from a […]

The early morning election results today, here in the United States, have set many people on edge, and not just Kamala Harris supporters. A common sentiment among those Americans who voted for the Democrats, and many concerned people around the world who are directly affected by how the United States sets and implements its policies, […]

It’s July 4th, or Independence Day in the United States. Given its placement in the summertime, it is one of this county’s favorite holidays. This year, however, with so much distressing churn in American politics and so much of the country immersed in a remarkably callous culture war against “the other” and against those who […]

I’m an unrepentant advocate of “transformational” leadership – not “transformative” leadership. Is this a semantics storm in a teacup? After all, “transformative” and “transformational” are similar terms…but there are important differences. “Transformative” generally refers to something that brings about a significant change or transformation. It implies a person, process, or an event that has the […]

Once again, it’s Pride Month around the world. Unlike most such commemorative Pride Months in the recent past, however, the joyful celebrations of identity, expression, rights, and dignity that Pride signifies are now tinged with an ominous and – particularly for transgender persons – alarming recognition. The anti-LGBTQI+ pushback, well-orchestrated and exceptionally well-funded, has now […]

In 2018, I had the remarkable opportunity to visit my son while he was serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Benin, West Africa. Ian taught at a public secondary school in the Ouesse commune in the Collines Department of Benin, with students ranging in age from 10 to 25. The school facilities were very […]

In late 2011, just six months into my service as a Senior Advisor to USAID (political appointee under the Obama administration), I managed to convene a gathering of eleven of USAID’s top strategic planners and senior analysts in one room. I posed a single question to them: “Would it not be advantageous to include the […]

It was June of 1979, and I was newly arrived in Kenya for what would become ten years working in and exploring that beautiful country. Being a little insecure in this new environment, I was cautious when a young Kenyan man approached me in Nairobi while I stood in the long queue awaiting entrance to the National Museum of Kenya. Still, his smile was disarmingly warm as […]

It takes a certain acquired skill to balance a career as a practitioner in humanitarian response and international development with a “night job” as an adjunct professor of public policy.  I have done this delicate balancing act at both Georgetown University and the University of Maryland for two decades; I have no plans to stop […]