Ms. Michelle Allison Godette currently serves as the Mission Director to Madagascar for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). She heads up a Mission that supports programs in food security and disaster assistance, environment and climate change, democracy and governance, and health, population and nutrition.  USAID is the lead U.S. Government agency that works to end extreme global poverty and enable resilient, democratic societies to realize their potential.  

This is Ms. Godette’s second assignment as Mission Director. She previously led the USAID Mission to Guinea and Sierra Leone, during a time when these countries were at the epicenter of the 2013 to 2015 West African Ebola outbreak.  Under Ms. Godette’s leadership USAID contributed to the unprecedented humanitarian response that helped to turn the tide against the outbreak, restoring West Africa to Ebola-free status in March, 2016.  

Ms. Godette began her service with USAID more than 17 years ago as an Attorney-advisor for Africa and as Senior Regional Legal Advisor in Southern Africa and in South America. She then served as Assistant General Counsel for Asia and the Middle East in USAID’s Office of the General Counsel where she distinguished herself as a Senior Advisor to USAID leadership. She next joined the USAID Mission in Nigeria as Deputy Mission Director, helping to lead the implementation of one of the U.S. Government’s largest social and economic development portfolios in sub-Saharan Africa.

Ms. Godette earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in French from Howard University in Washington D.C. and pursued additional linguistics studies at l’Université de Caen in France. She has a Juris Doctor degree from American University Law School. Before joining USAID, she had a successful career as a prosecutor and family law litigator in the D.C. Office of the Attorney General.

She is the proud mother of a nine-year-old son.