Stephen W. Giddings served for 25 years as a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), retiring in late 2005. For most of his USAID career, he specialized in managing housing and urban development programs, serving in USAID offices inPanama,Kenya,Cote d’Ivoire,RussiaandRwanda, as well asWashington,D.C. During his last four years with USAID he was the Chief of the Policy Division for USAID’s Africa Bureau.
For the past eight years Stephen has been an independent consultant. He has consulted with the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) on aid effectiveness issues, USAID, the International Real Property Foundation (IRPF), the International Housing Coalition (IHC), the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa and several other international development firms. He authored a conceptual piece to assist USAID in designing a new urban strategy and a study of the U.S. Government’s efforts to implement the Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act.
Prior to his USAID career, Stephen managed low income housing development programs at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in Philadelphia and Boston and was Director of Planning and Development at the Boston Housing Authority.
Stephen received a BA in political science from Wesleyan University and an MPA degree from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. He lives in Potomac, Maryland with his wife and pooch Sydney and loves to retreat to a summer place in Maine whenever he has the chance.