Nancy Estes

In 2010, Nancy Estes became mission director for Guinea and Sierra Leone. Estes has spent most of her career in international development, working for USAID since 1995 and specializing in food security and food aid. Prior to this appointment, she served as supervisory program officer, then deputy mission director, for USAID/Ethiopia. She led the emergency humanitarian food aid responses to Sahelian droughts across the West Africa region and to conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone. She served as chief for food security and food aid in USAID’s Regional East Africa mission and led the U.S. development and emergency food aid programs in Ethiopia, the Great Lakes Region, Madagascar, Somalia, Sudan, and Tanzania.  She has also worked as a food aid officer at USAID offices in Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, and Senegal.

Before joining USAID, Ms. Estes worked for the International Food Policy Research Institute in Rwanda and was a State Department Intern in Guinea.  She has a BA from the University of Southern California and a MA in African Studies from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.