Policy Innovations The central address for a fairer globalization

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Harriet Babbitt

Senior Vice President

Ambassador Harriet C. Babbitt, senior vice president of Hunt Alternatives Fund, has directed the Washington, D.C., office of the Initiative for Inclusive Security and the broader Hunt Alternatives Fund since early 2002. Ambassador Babbitt previously served as deputy administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). As the second most senior official overseeing the U.S. foreign assistance program, she managed a large array of programs in the fields of democratization, women's empowerment, economic growth, education, health, the environment, and agriculture. Her responsibilities included oversight of USAID efforts to assist post-conflict reconstruction in the Balkans and East Timor.

Prior to joining USAID, Ambassador Babbitt served from 1993 to 1997 as U.S. permanent representative to the Organization of American States. While in that role, she led the U.S. negotiating effort to complete the world's first anti-corruption convention and helped strengthen the Inter-American Human Rights Commission. Ambassador Babbitt also served as a senior public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and spent nearly 20 years as a practicing attorney.

Ambassador Babbitt serves on numerous Boards of Directors including the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), the American Bar Association Central Europe and Eurasia Legal Institute (ABA-CEELI), and the Council for a Community of Democracies (CCD). She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Ambassador Babbitt is married and has two children.

Focus: Democracy, Development, Governance, Security, United States, Americas

Language Fluency:

English

Last Updated: Nov 20, 2008