On February 28, the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center hosted J Alexander Thier, Assistant to the Administrator and Director of the Office of Afghanistan and Pakistan Affairs at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for a discussion on USAID’s goals and activities in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including long term strategies.

Addressing key social, economic, and political development needs in Afghanistan and Pakistan are vital to achieving stability and growth in the region. With the situation in Afghanistan remaining tense, and U.S.-Pakistan relations continuing to fray, an effective strategy for providing U.S. development assistance is especially critical. 
 
J Alexander Thier is currently Assistant to the Administrator and Director of the Office of Afghanistan and Pakistan Affairs at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Washington, DC.  He received a B.A. from Brown University, a Master’s in Law and Diplomacy at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and a JD from Stanford Law School. Thier’s experience in Afghanistan goes back to the 1993 to 1996 civil war when he worked for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance to Afghanistan.  From 2002 to 2004, he was legal adviser to Afghanistan’s Constitutional and Judicial Reform Commissions in Kabul, where he assisted in the drafting of the Afghan constitution.  From 2005 until June 2010, he worked at the United States Institute of Peace as a senior adviser in the Rule of Law Center for Innovation, as well as director of a project on constitution making, peacebuilding, and national reconciliation and expert group lead for the Genocide Prevention Task Force.

Featuring

J Alexander Thier
Assistant to the Administrator and Director, Office of Afghanistan and Pakistan Affairs, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)

Moderated by

Shuja Nawaz
Director, South Asia Center, Atlantic Council