Pitt to Host March 15 Saul M. Katz Lecture by Former Director of U.S. Agency for International Development

PITTSBURGH—Andrew Natsios, former director of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), will deliver a free public Saul M. Katz Lecture on Social and Economic Development titled “The Past and Future of U.S. Foreign Aid in an Uncertain World” at 4 p.m. March 15 in Ballroom A of the University of Pittsburgh’s University Club, 123 University Pl., Oakland.

Natsios will discuss new directions for foreign aid through public and private alliances including USAID’s models, specifically the Global Development Alliance. Additionally, he will explore how foreign aid benefits U.S. citizens, particularly through its strategic use aimed at the improvement of domestic national security. 

A reception will follow Natsios’ lecture. Reservations are requested but not required. To RSVP and for more information, contact Pitt’s Ford Institute for Human Security at 412-648-7434 or fihs@pitt.edu.

A Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy in Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, Natsios served as administrator of USAID from May 2001 to January 2006. During that time, he worked directly with Sudan as the Special Humanitarian Coordinator, and, from October 2006 to December 2007, served as the President’s Special Envoy to Sudan.  

From 1993 to 1998, Natsios was vice president of World Vision U.S., the largest faith-based NGO in the world. A Gulf War veteran, he was a member of the U.S. Army Reserves for 23 years. He retired in 1995 as a lieutenant colonel. 

A graduate of Georgetown University and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, Natsios is the author of three books; his most recent is Sudan, South Sudan, and Darfur:  What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press), published in February 2012. 

The lecture—presented by the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA) and Ford Institute for Human Security, as well as the International Orthodox Christian Charities—is endowed by the Saul M. Katz Lectureship on Social and Economic Development. A founding faculty member of GSPIA, Saul M. Katz, joined Pitt’s teaching staff in 1960 and served as the director of Programs in Economic and Social Development, now the Master of International Development degree program. Considered an international authority on economic and social development, Katz had a special interest in the implementation of development policies, programs, and projects. 

Past speakers in the Katz Lecture Series include Dipak K. Gupta, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Political Science at San Diego State University; Steve McDonald, director of the Africa Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; and Elinor Ostrom, recipient of the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. 

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