The role of Provincial Reconstruction Teams in delivering governance and development

Special briefing with Mark Ward, Special Advisor on Development to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) on: The role of Provincial Reconstruction Teams in delivering governance and development.

Mark Ward is the Special Advisor on Development to the Special Representative of the Secretary General for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), based in Kabul. He is responsible for implementation of UNAMA's mandate to improve donor coordination and aid effectiveness in Afghanistan. Before joining UNAMA, Ward was Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Asia at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and a Career Minister in the U.S. Senior Foreign Service. He had principal responsibility for USAID programs in South and East Asia. He was also chair of the Agency's tsunami task force, the South Asia earthquake task force and the Lebanon Reconstruction task force. Ward was the 2006 winner of the Service to America Medal for international affairs. Ward's last overseas post with USAID was in Pakistan as the Mission Director, serving from July 2002 through December 2003. Prior to that, he was the Director of USAID's Office of Procurement in Washington, D.C. Ward joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1986 and served in Pakistan (twice), Egypt, the Philippines, and Russia. He is a native of San Francisco, and received his Bachelor of Arts in political science and Juris Doctor from the University of California at Berkeley. Ward was headmaster of a girl's high school in rural Kenya before law school, and practiced law in Washington for four years.