“ Foreign Aid at a Crossroads: Navigating Humanitarian and Global Health Challenges in a New Era”

Nidhi Bouri is an independent consultant and is the founder and director of Stand Up for AID, a strategic communications group aiming to change the narrative about foreign assistance among Americans. Nidhi most recently served as Deputy Assistant Administrator for Global Health at USAID, where she oversaw over $2.5 billion in foreign assistance resources and led the agency’s efforts to address health emergencies. She served in the White House, as the Director for Global Health and then as Acting Senior Director for Development, Global Health, and Humanitarian Response on the National Security Council, as well Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to the First Lady.

Nidhi previously served in USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, as well as Deputy Executive Director and Chief of Staff for USAID’s first COVID-19 Task Force in 2020. Prior to her time in government, Nidhi worked in the non-governmental sector, leading assistance programs focused on health system collapse, humanitarian protection, and mass migration. She started her career in research, focused on national and global health security and pandemic preparedness.

Over the course of nearly 20 years, she has focused on advancing health outcomes for vulnerable and marginalized populations, particularly in emergency contexts. Nidhi has worked on the frontlines to deliver emergency assistance in several countries, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. She holds an MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.