Lessons Learned: State-Building in Afghanistan

Event Details

Moderator RYAN C. CROCKER is the 2013 James R. Schlesinger Distinguished Professor at the Miller Center. He holds the diplomatic rank of career ambassador, the U.S. Foreign Service’s highest rank. Crocker served as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 2011 to 2012 and U.S. ambassador to Iraq from 2007 to 2009. He previously served as U.S. ambassador to Pakistan from 2004 to 2007; to Syria from 1998 to 2001; to Kuwait from 1994 to 1997; and to Lebanon from 1990 to 1993. 

ELIZABETH FIELD is Assistant Inspector General for Audits and Inspections at the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. She leads the agency's multidisciplinary team of auditors, program analysts and inspectors deployed in Kabul, Afghanistan, and at SIGAR headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. Field is responsible for ensuring that SIGAR issues high-quality and timely reports to aid Congress in its oversight of U.S.-funded Afghanistan reconstruction programs, and to support agencies charged with implementing these programs. She previously worked in the International Affairs and Trade Team at the U.S. Government Accountability Office and also served as a Jacob K. Javits fellow on the Public Health Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. 

ROBIN LYNN RAPHEL is a career diplomat who is currently the coordinator for non-military assistance to Pakistan with the rank of ambassador. She was appointed by President Clinton as first Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia.

HILDA ARELLANO is Senior Development Advisor at the State Department Foreign Service Institute in Washington, D.C. In this role she serves as professor of development studies for the senior executive officers of both USAID and State Department. With rank of Career Minister, Professor Arellano served as the USAID Director in Iraq with Ambassador Crocker, and more recently as the Ambassador for the Coordination Directorate for Development and Economic Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. She brings over 30 years of experience in development around the world, including many conflict countries, such as Egypt, and of course, Iraq and Afghanistan.