Dr. Carleene Dei, who has worked for USAID since 1988, was appointed Director of USAID South Africa in May 2005. 

Dr. Dei began her USAID career as a Regional Housing and Urban Development Officer in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, where she managed programs in decentralization, municipal management, and low-income housing.

From 1994-1999, she headed the Regional Housing and Urban Development Office in Pretoria, South Africa, where she worked with the newly installed South African government on their groundbreaking program to construct a million houses and make water and electricity available to the disadvantaged majority population.

From 1999 to 2001, Dr. Dei served in AID Washington’s Africa Bureau as the Deputy Director and Acting Director of the Office of Sustainable Development, the entity responsible for furnishing intellectual leadership and technical/analytical support to USAID’s bilateral missions in Africa and for coordinating major Agency initiatives.

From 2001- 2005, she was Mission Director of the regional USAID West Africa program, headquartered in Accra, Ghana. The program focused on cross-border issues (food security, natural resource management, HIV/AIDS and conflict prevention) and partnered with regional intergovernmental organizations, including the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

As the Director of USAID/South Africa, Dr. Dei works in collaboration with the government, the NGO community and the private sector to tackle critical obstacles to equitable development.  These include HIV/AIDS (via the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), employment generation (primarily through the provision of technical and financial support to small and medium-sized black-owned enterprise), capacity building for teachers and learners, and expanding service delivery to the majority population.  In July 2007, USAID/South Africa assumed responsibility for furnishing key administrative and technical services to other USAID Missions in the Southern Africa region.

Dr. Dei has a Ph.D. in urban anthropology from Columbia University, an M.A. in education from Harvard University, and a B.A. in political science from Cornell University.