When Joel Runnels graduated from college, he followed the age-old tradition of young people who don't quite know what they want to do with their lives, which is to say he applied to the Peace Corps. Runnels had studied American Sign Language in college and, as someone who grew up with a speech impediment, he also had a lifelong affinity for working with people with disabilities. The Peace Corps, under the mistaken impression that there's one universal sign language, invited him to pioneer their Deaf Education Program in Kenya. Runnels only knew ASL, so he had to learn Swahili and Kenyan Sign Language as well.
In Kenya, Runnels's students kept asking him if he'd heard of an African-American educator and missionary named Andrew Foster, who is often called the father of Deaf education in Africa. Runnels hadn't, and back in the U.S. he found no books about Foster's life or legacy. "I thought, if I want to read the book, I have to write it," he said. Runnels ended up getting a PhD so that he could write a biography of Foster as his dissertation. "I felt if he has served as a bridge between America and Africa for 30 years, I can give up a few of my years to give his life and legacy a scholarly treatment," he said.
After completing his PhD, Runnels joined the U.S. Agency for International Development as an education officer in Uzbekistan, where he partnered with the government to support the country's public education. He sees international development as being deeply in service to the American people and our nation. "To meet and to have a meal or a conversation with an American, that is person-to-person diplomacy and soft power," he said.
But the Trump administration has taken a wrecking ball to the nation's existing approach to international development. On Jan. 20, Trump issued an executive order directing a freeze of foreign aid. In February, Elon Musk posted on Twitter that "USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die." Over six weeks, the administration, aided by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, summarily dismantled the agency, cutting 83 percent of its programs. AP reported the canceled contracts represented a range of humanitarian aid: treating tens of thousands of malnourished children in Congo, offering lifesaving food and nutrition support to more than 600,000 people in drought-plagued Kenya, and improving access to disaster warning systems for disabled people in the Philippines, among many, many others.
When a 7.7-magnitude earthquake ripped through Myanmar in March, a three-person USAID team that had traveled to help rescue and recovery, sleeping in the streets in the earthquake zone, received their termination notices while in Myanmar. The annual cost of all of U.S. foreign aid represented less than 1 percent of the federal budget, per the New York Times.
Although Runnels was initially placed on a paid administrative leave for several months in which he was unable to work, he was recently invited back to continue working until he will be laid off again on Sept. 1. "We were moved off of administrative leave and invited back in to help, supposedly, dismantle our own agency," he said. I spoke with Runnels about his call to foreign service, reframing international aid as investment, and the precarity of being fired while abroad. (Runnels spoke with me on his own time, without using any government equipment or technology, and he spoke with me from his position as an individual, not on behalf of USAID.)
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how you wound up in this career, and how you wound up in Foreign Service?
I had successfully defended my PhD dissertation. As I was in that process, I was just flooding the job market zone with my applications and reached this point where I was sending out so many—I just completely lost track of where I was applying and to whom. At the same time, we were coming out of COVID as well, so many of our minds were in a fog. It so happened that one afternoon I had a call on my cell phone with a 202 area code, which I recognize as Washington, D.C. Usually I do not answer numbers that I do not recognize. But I thought, well, if it's coming from Washington, it might be worth answering. And it was. It was a call which was worth answering. It was USAID asking if I was still interested in the job. I had a moment where I was almost going to ask, "Well, what job?" But I thought that wouldn't be a favorable start with a future employer. I thought, well, if I've applied, I must have been interested. It must have been something worth accepting. So I did, and it was one of the best decisions I've ever made.
I went for it. I never looked back. The onboarding involved approximately a year of very technical training—some on foreign diplomacy, on safety and security, language. It's really been a great career for me. One of the best things I've ever done. I mean, even with the very difficult situation we're in, I wouldn't give it a second thought. If I knew then what I know now, I would still go for it, because it's really an awesome and excellent opportunity to serve the American people from afar, even from Uzbekistan.
I would love to hear more about this year of training that you mentioned all USAID officers undergo.
A lot of it comes down to language training. We are expected to tenure in a language. What that means is having X number of months—you choose a language and then you specialize in it. We do that at FSI, Foreign Service Institute. It's also like going back to school, but specifically on language. At the end, we have an exam we're supposed to pass. After that, we do almost a weeklong safety and security training in collaboration with our Department of Defense colleagues, because we have historically been sent almost right down on the front line—not as military soldiers, but often in those environments. Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan. I think we have our colleagues right now in Myanmar, which is still a civil war zone. So training how do we survive, how do we mitigate and manage that kind of an environment?
Before we're sent out to an overseas assignment we will do what's known as rotation. That's working with USAID, or what was once USAID in Washington, whatever bureau or desk or wherever were needed. For example, I did a rotation with USAID's Africa Bureau in Washington to review basic education funding and look at, OK, what is the ROI? What is the return on investment on that? Because it looked like every year, [basic education funding] was less, less, less, less, less, less. So what are the implications if there's a basic education funding cut, or is it OK?
I would love to hear more about the work that you are doing in Uzbekistan, and what a day looks like for you as a Education Officer.
There's almost no two days which are going to be alike. In my education officer role, I manage our education portfolio. A lot of my activities would revolve and would move around those activities. So it could be making a site visit to follow up on and observe, are these activities being implemented in the place that was agreed on with the participants and the numbers and the activities? Almost like a social audit.
Another common activity would be meeting with our Government of Uzbekistan counterparts, looking for and aligning our mutual points of collaboration. I serve at the pleasure of this [U.S.] administration or any administration. I also serve Uzbekistan at the pleasure of this host country government. So a lot of our days of work goes into that relationship-building and that relationship maintenance to be sure that whatever we are implementing here is aligned with what the host government wants and understands as our business here.
We as the U.S. government have a bilateral relationship with the host country, the government of Uzbekistan. We are simply working with and adding value to whatever they have. It is doing systematic change inside of the government of Uzbekistan's public schools. I can give you a couple of examples. One project inside of our portfolio is Youth Employment Skills, also known as YES. That was in response to an ask from the government of Uzbekistan to bring [an] economics and business study course to their public high schools. Because, understanding this was the former Soviet Union, so state-run, state-owned, state-controlled [businesses]. There was no real private sector until now. They have kind of a hybrid system where they're transitioning into free market economy, but students are graduating who don't even know what that word means. And no one does business better than we do. So we, with an American can-do spirit, the government of Uzbekistan asks, we respond, why not? If not us, then who? Russia, China, Iran? No. Let's own that space. So that's one of the projects I manage, whether I'm observing lessons or I'm meeting with the school principal or the parents or whoever. We don't just write and send a check and take someone's word for it, right? We have to have Americans who are following up and are asking students, so, do you like it? What is working well? What's not? What would you like more of?
I also wanted to ask if there were any particular projects that you worked on that you were proud of or excited about.
I wish that media and political spaces would, instead of talking about foreign assistance, would talk about strategic foreign investment. This project I mentioned, Youth and Employment Skills, is strategic foreign investment. This is investing in youth in Uzbekistan to learn about business and entrepreneurism so that in [the] future, they can even do business with us. To buy American services and goods. That's something [we] are quite proud of. It had been running about a year and a half and already, it started small, the Government of Uzbekistan took it and then scaled it up on their own dime. It's still very early, only a year and a half, to really know what the impact is going to be. Unfortunately, it's one of the thousands of projects which were canceled.
I'm quite proud of another project we had called Uzbekistan Excellence in Education Project, UEEP. One part of it was introducing English as a foreign language. Uzbekistanis historically have a mother tongue language, and then as a former Soviet republic, Russian. But after Russia's full-scale war of aggression in Ukraine, Uzbekistanis wanted to rely less on Russia and open up to the rest of the world, and were looking to America as a place of post-secondary and business opportunity. So introducing English as a core subject in their public schools was also a real win. Because on one hand, students might have the business, economics, and entrepreneurial hard and soft skills and know-how, but if they don't have the English language, they're more or less boxed in, having to only do business with Russia—and [it's] increasingly hard because of economics, sanctions. So this is another one that our host the government of Uzbekistan took, and they ran with this. Specifically we provided hard and soft copy English textbooks for students, and then also teacher guides as well. And the government of Uzbekistan took what was a very small-scale project and scaled it up, all public schools nationwide, on their own money. This is something which would, in [the] future, create a market which American businesses would be able to access and utilize, if it's no longer strictly Russian.
Could you tell me about learning that you had been affected by the Reduction in Force?
Immediately after the inauguration, we were quite hopeful and quite optimistic. I think there's a misunderstanding somewhere, somehow, that USAID is a political agency. In fact, it's not. It was founded in 1962 inside of our Foreign Assistance Act to be a bipartisan agency which simply serves whatever administration is voted in by the American people. Many of my senior colleagues had worked quite well with Trump 1.0, and so we received a warm and actually welcoming message from the acting administrator on Jan. 21 [which] had talked about how we were going to be innovative and [pursue] smarter investments and partnerships. We were told that we would have a chance to present how our work aligns with an American First agenda. We were willing, ready and able to answer that call, because that's who we are and that's what we do. But the process—we were told that there would be a 90-day pause on foreign assistance, [where] administrations like to know and review what is inside of all of our portfolios. That's nothing new, and many of us have been down that road before. But this road, as we have seen, has gone to a different place, which is completely uncharted territory. So whatever review, assuming one happened, it was what I would call a black box review. We don't even know who was reviewing us, assuming a review happened at all. The next thing we knew, media was reporting that 90 and then 80 and then something—I don't know where it is now—percent of our projects had been terminated.
If we don't have projects anymore, then we're no longer needed. Our positions are going to go next. In fact, that's what happened. One of the hardest things is leaving my colleagues and then also leaving the job before it's really done. I've only served four years. I was only getting started, and, as I mentioned, only starting to see results. But I have colleagues who have been serving overseas and are here with their families who have been doing this, five, 10, 15, 20, 25, some even 30 years. They came here with family. It's one thing to receive a RIF when you're maybe in Washington, but it's another to receive it when you're in Uzbekistan. It's not just a job. It's a career. It's a calling. So to be told that we're no longer needed, and even to be told that we're criminals and we're enemies of the state, is, in my opinion, unnecessary and is uncalled for.
Many people don't know that this is not the first administration to ever carry out a RIF. The Reagan administration did one. The Clinton administration did one as well. And it's completely within this administration's right as well. But [previously] it's something which would be done in a more organized way. It would be reviewing our projects. It would be looking into who is working on what, and then to downscale in coordination with Congress. For [the] Clinton administration, that was approximately a six-month process. This RIF happened, I think, after not even six weeks.
This feels more like a political purge, not like a pivot. For many of us, it feels cruel. It feels inhumane. And this is one of the reasons that I felt like I need to speak up and I need to go public. Because when I talk with folks in America, they don't even know that 100 percent of USAID colleagues have been fired, many of whom are now stuck overseas in places like Uzbekistan. It's akin to NASA sending an astronaut up on the moon, and then ground control is fired and then your astronaut is stuck up on the moon.
Are you planning to return to the U.S.? Were you endangered at all by the termination of your position while you are in Uzbekistan?
I was not, but that's because I am in Uzbekistan, which is a safe and stable country. I know and am in touch with a number of my USAID colleagues who are not as fortunate as I am—are not in safe places and have been endangered by the way that this RIF has been done. For example, I have colleagues in Myanmar who—the earthquake came, and they have been sleeping out on the street. They were fired while sleeping out on the street.
This is now my third RIF letter, and I don't know if it's the last, because it's still rife with mistakes. We simply are living in this very precarious place. It's like the River Styx, and you're hearing the RIF rapids somewhere looming in front of you, and it's a heavy fog. That's what our lives are like. Even planning becomes challenging, because how can I plan a future like this?
You said you've gotten three RIF letters.
Yes.
It's just giving you a different variation of the same message?
The first one was wrong. The second one was wrong. This one is also wrong. It's an irony of the so-called DOGE that, isn't their brand supposed to be government efficiency? There's some irony just how inefficient they are. And that it's supposed to be on merit hire. So why not hire someone on merit who knows how to write a RIF letter?
What has been wrong about the letters?
They are, for example, not properly calculating my years of service. For instance, it's supposed to be my total federal service.
As I've shared with you, I am a Returned Peace Corps volunteer. So those two years need to also be placed in my years of federal service. Again, a lay audience might say, "Ah, so what? Four years, six years, whatever." [But] this is our compensation and maybe where we are in the possible re-hiring hierarchy, so I want all of my years of service to show up on my RIFed letter.
For those of us who served, it's almost like our college transcript, right? You want all the credits on your final transcript. If you receive it and it's missing a significant number, you're going to bring the transcript back to the register and ask for a revision. That's what I did approximately three weeks ago, and it's been crickets.
What are your fears or concerns about what we as a nation lose, but also we as a world lose, with the dismantling of USAID?
I think somewhere along the way, the understanding of public service has been lost. The general public might not know that a public servant is there to serve the general public. These are the people who process your passports, or who deliver your mail, who acknowledge receipt of your federal and state taxes, now that we're upon tax season. These are not just lazy loafers. These are people who are rendering a valued service, often [making] less than what they would make in the private sector.
So whether it's USAID or FEMA or IRS or the Department of Education, all of those entities are there to provide something to the American people. And then when that's removed, we're losing a lot of essential services that we need. For USAID, for example, as we close up shop in a place like Uzbekistan, we are potentially losing access to this market. When we build a relationship with the government of Uzbekistan, they are more inclined to do business with us. Aid is leverage, and so essentially we lose leverage. And all of the money we've invested—because I don't see it as just foreign assistance, I see this as strategic investment—those investments are lost. It's as if you were to construct your house, and then at the end you walk away, and there's the house without a roof, right? And it starts raining. You completely destroy your investment. And I think that's what we lose.
If you have lost your job as a result of ongoing government cuts and are interested in speaking with me for this series, please contact me on Signal at simbler.88 or simbler@defector.com. I would love to hear from you.
