USAID Welcomes New Mission Director to Nigeria
A new Mission Director for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has been appointed for Nigeria, in person of Dr. Anne E. Patterson.
Dr. Patterson manages the Agency’s $481 million annual bilateral portfolio in Nigeria, which focuses on improving the health and education of the Nigerian people, advancing good governance, mitigating conflict, and promoting economic development.
She also oversees an annual humanitarian assistance portfolio of $300 million, activities to counter violent extremism through the Office of Transition Initiatives, and the largest Power Africa program on the continent.
Dr. Patterson assumed her duties in a virtual ceremony with U.S. Ambassador Mary Beth Leonard while in quarantine, following guidelines from the Nigerian Ministry of Health. She is now fully engaged to lead the largest agency in the U.S. Embassy community in Nigeria.
“I am delighted to be here, and I look forward to continuing to build on the U.S.-Nigerian partnership,” Dr. Patterson said. “For sixty years, the United States and Nigeria have worked as partners to improve health, educational, and agricultural systems, to support Nigeria’s invaluable human resources, and to improve essential service delivery to meet the needs of the Nigerian people.”
Prior to her arrival in Nigeria, Dr. Patterson served as USAID Mission Director in Lebanon, and Deputy Director at USAID/Egypt. She began her career with USAID in 1992 as an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow in the Near East Bureau. There, she worked on water and wastewater issues.
Mission Director Patterson was sworn in as a career Foreign Service Officer in 1994. She also served tours in Indonesia, West Bank Gaza, Iraq, Georgia, and the Europe and Eurasia Bureau in Washington.
Dr. Patterson holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Health from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland and a Master of Science in Public Health from the University of South Carolina.
