On today's podcast, we get to hear from a former ambassador with extraordinary experience of Africa

and a lot of insight into the toll that corruption has taken on that continent, Michelle Gavin.

Michelle was staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Subcommittee on African Affairs.

In 2009, she joined the new Obama administration as a special assistant to the president

and senior director for Africa at the National Security Council.

In 2011, Michelle moved to Botswana, where she was the second youngest American and the youngest woman ever to serve the United States as ambassador.

Michelle, thank you for joining me.

Thank you so much for having me.

Let's start by exploring your longstanding interest in Africa that has really spanned your career to date.

You're from Arizona. How does that happen?

Well, growing up in Phoenix, I wanted a chance to see the rest of the world. So I went

off to study international relations in college. And at that time, there were developments on

the African continent that were so riveting. It was impossible, I think, not to have one's

interest captured. In the mid-90s,

you had both, you know, the liberation of the New South Africa and the Rwandan genocide.

There was a sense of dynamism, both good and bad and high stakes that made African politics

incredibly interesting.

If we could focus specifically, and I realize it's not a uniform monolithic hole,

but people often talk about the problem of corruption in Africans by no means isolated to Africa,

but there are some real significant kleptocracies in Africa.

Can you just kind of describe your experience of that?

I know that you were diligent about keeping corruption front and center when you were at the NSC.

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