REPORT FOR THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
SUBJECT: Ambassadorial Nomination: Certificate of Demonstrated Competence — Foreign Service Act, Section 304(a)(4)
POST: Republic of Ecuador
CANDIDATE: Arthur W. Brown
Arthur W. Brown, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor, has served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Harare, Zimbabwe since 2021. He was the USAID Mission Director at Embassy Harare from 2020-2021. Prior to that, Brown was USAID Director in the Dominican Republic from 2016-2020, twenty months of which he was on detail to the Department of State as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Santo Domingo. Before that, Brown was USAID Director at the U.S. Embassy in Managua, Nicaragua. Additionally, Brown has served in Kabul, Afghanistan and in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo as USAID Deputy Director. Other assignments include Botswana, Guinea, Nigeria, and regional support activities in Sierra Leone, Haiti, Jamaica, Barbados, and Namibia. Brown has devoted much of his career, spanning nearly 30 years, to the Africa and Western Hemisphere regions. This extensive and substantive regional experience, coupled with his management experience and demonstrated ability to lead large interagency teams, makes him a well-qualified candidate to be the U.S. Ambassador to Ecuador.
Mr. Brown is the recipient of numerous USAID performance awards and the USAID Administrator’s Management Improvement Award. He is a distinguished recipient of the Franklin H. Williams award for Outstanding Community Leaders. Brown has an MBA degree from Johns Hopkins University, a BA degree from the University of Virginia, and a MS degree in National Security Strategy from the National War College. Prior to joining USAID, Brown worked for Johns Hopkins University (JHPIEGO) on international maternal and child health programs, and his international development career began when Brown served as a Rural Community Development Extension Agent in the Republic of Bénin, West Africa, where he was a Peace Corps Volunteer for over three years. He speaks French and Spanish.