Choice Humanitarian CEO urges locally led development, warns of funding risks after USAID restructuring

Heather Hammond Crews, chief executive officer of Choice Humanitarian, told a University of Utah audience on Wednesday that locally led, community-driven development is the most effective path to reduce global poverty and to sustain results when international funding shifts.

Speaking at the Hinckley Institute of Politics forum “Compassion Into Action: Disrupting Global Poverty Together,” Crews said Choice Humanitarian partners with community leaders, local technical staff and donors to build projects intended to be owned and maintained by residents. “Projects should be created with communities, not for them,” she said.

The message was framed around several field examples Crews and her staff described. In a rural Kenyan community Crews identified as Piku, she said a community-driven expansion and fortification of nearby dams has provided cleaner water for “homes, schools and hospitals,” and now benefits roughly 1,300 residents. In Peru, Crews described a 77-year-old farmer who adopted a bio‑garden technique to provide food for his grandchildren. In Ecuador, she described a women’s cooperative — which Crews identified as the Mbewarmee women’s cooperative — that helped a woman named Laura develop a…