102 | Gayle Smith on the Federal Role in Global Response to Health and Climate Crises

On the Evidence

Gayle Smith, CEO of the ONE Campaign, served in many leadership roles in the federal government as a staunch advocate for evidence-based decision making. As Coordinator for Global COVID Response and Health Security at the U.S. Department of State in 2021, Smith led the U.S. effort to end the global pandemic, helping the Biden-Harris Administration map out a response, identify spikes, and target vulnerabilities through monitoring, testing, diagnostics, and other tools. As Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) during the Obama Administration, Smith prioritized a culture of evaluation and learning, emphasizing the importance of focusing on outcomes rather than inputs and using data and evidence to make midcourse corrections on projects and programs. And, as a White House official who played a leading role in the U.S. response to Ebola, Smith saw firsthand the importance of leveraging data to track outbreaks, target treatments, invest resources, and move in real time to maximize impact. On this episode of Mathematica’s On the Evidence podcast—one in our occasional Evidence in Government series—Mike Burns, Mathematica senior director of communications and public affairs, spoke with Smith about a range of topics including evaluation at USAID, the U.S. response to Ebola, the intersection of development finance and climate change, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), bilateral and global agencies, and the COVID-19 global health crisis, including its economic impact on women. A full transcript of this episode is available here: https://www.mathematica.org/blogs/gayle-smith-on-the-federal-role-in-global-response-to-health-and-climate-crises Read Smith’s remarks from the 2016 Brookings Institution event on the state of evaluation at USAID: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/20160330_usaid_evaluation_transcript.pdf Read the ONE Campaign’s statement on the appointment of Ajay Banga as president of the World Bank: https://www.one.org/us/press/banga-world-bank/ Read ONE’s statement on the 20th anniversary of the PEPFAR announcement: https://www.one.org/us/press/one-statement-on-20th-anniversary-of-pepfar-announcement/ Read Smith’s POLITICO interview with Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/11/01/linda-thomas-greenfield-gayle-smith-interview-00014844