ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Thank you, Margot. And thank you to my colleagues participating in today’s ceremony––we welcome you Ambassador Kosnett and the team from Embassy Pristina. I’m glad we could be together to elevate Zeinah, our current Deputy Mission Director, into this essential role as our new Mission Director to Kosovo.
First, I want to say to Zeinah––congratulations. I also want to welcome Zeinah’s family, her parents Bassem and Iffat, and her husband Sa-ul. I love that they are here to celebrate with us today. As we in this line of work know, we would not be able to do what we do without the support and sacrifice of our loved ones.
Zeinah, we couldn’t have selected a better person to lead such a critical Mission—USAID’s largest Mission in the Balkans—which not only serves the people of Kosovo, but provides support services to our other Missions in the region as well.
And because you have already served as Acting Mission Director on several occasions in Pristina, the team there with you in Kosovo is already well aware of your superb leadership qualities. And they are excited to see your leadership formally enshrined.
It is clear that they see what all of your previous colleagues have seen.
When you were Deputy Mission Director in Bangladesh, I can’t even imagine what it was like for you to find yourself in the sudden position of figuring out how to help hundreds of thousands of traumatized Rohingya refugees who were streaming across the border. Yet you managed to work with our partners and the government to provide these individuals — who had endured so much — with shelter and food and psychosocial care, when they had no other place to turn.
And while I’m sure that was an around-the-clock effort, you still made time to encourage your staff to prioritize self-care and generously shared your own time to train and support them.
That generosity of yours is the stuff of legend. As COVID-19 spread throughout Kosovo, and led to the cancellation of trainings and professional development opportunities, you kept your finger on the pulse of the Mission, holding virtual coffees and reaching out to staff individually, boosting morale at a dispiriting time.
These are all qualities of a true leader—someone who knows how to support people when they need it, and when to challenge them as well to think more deeply and broadly.
In addition to calling Zeinah “laser sharp” and “brilliant,” several colleagues cited her ability to distill people’s thinking and communicate concisely. As one colleague put it, “It feels like she is able to see the very best version of our words and thoughts and reflect them back to us in a way where everyone sees the path forward.”
We can all use someone like that in our lives. But Zeinah’s skills go beyond the workplace. One colleague called her the “most dedicated and determined online shopper I have ever met.”
I just hope I never have to bid against you on eBay.
Zeinah, we are so glad that you are putting your many talents to use in Kosovo.
Neither Zeinah, nor I are strangers to Kosovo. However, our distinct experiences serve as bookends, at least for now, in the USAID-Kosovo relationship. I spent part of my early career as a reporter researching the repression and atrocities committed against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo by the Serbian regime. Serbian President Slobodan Milošević’s brutal campaign was eventually brought to an end by NATO’s intervention, but all those years of repression and that brutal conflict left Kosovo a war-torn country, lacking the governing structures and institutions they needed to govern themselves and forge a stable democracy.
Since 1999, USAID has invested more than $1 billion in the reconstruction of Kosovo and in supporting the creation of self-governing institutions and a viable economy.
Today, 22 years after an international peacekeeping force first deployed, helping navigate the country’s path from conflict to peace, Kosovo is now deploying its first-ever international security mission alongside the U.S. Military in Kuwait. And that’s a tremendous tribute to the work done through diplomacy and development in the intervening years.
The United States has had the backs of Kosovars as they have developed their political institutions, undertaken necessary democratic reforms, and gone through the process of political decentralization.
That is the Kosovo that Zeinah is partnering with—a vibrant, democratic country that has shown dramatic gains, for example, in gender equality. Earlier this year, Kosovo elected its second-ever woman President. It seems entirely fitting that Kosovo also just took home its third gold summer Olympic medal in Tokyo—in women’s judo.
Over the last two years, serving as Deputy Mission Director, Zeinah has taken a particular interest in supporting women-led civil society organizations and empowering women to take leadership roles. Last year, she led a virtual mentoring session with female judges in Kosovo, sharing her personal experiences and guiding them on how to overcome the barriers that women seem to face no matter what part of the world they’re in.
Under Zeinah’s leadership, USAID will continue to support civil society and community-based organizations to better represent the needs of Kosovo’s citizens and work with the government to implement citizen-responsive laws and policies.
While the Kosovars have made significant gains on the political front, there is still work to do to create an economy that provides opportunities for all.
To that end, we will work to strengthen the private sector, and create opportunities for the youngest population in Europe to live up to their full potential.
Turning people’s resolve into results. Engendering hope where the hardship is great and the path to lasting change is long. That is what USAID Missions around the world are tasked with. That is what Zeinah has already shown her commitment and capacity to do.
Zeinah, I wish you much success as you take on your second tour in Kosovo. And I thank you for your commitment to this Agency, our ideals, and our mission.
And with that, it is now my honor to administer the oath.