Richard Davis Focused on Guinea Worm Eradication in West Africa

Richard Brannon Davis, senior program analyst, Office of Global Health coordinates global health activities at NCEH-ATSDR and oversees multiple water/sanitation projects in Latin America and the Caribbean. He’s been with CDC for 3 ½ years. He served in the Peace Corps from 1999 to 2001, in Rambo, Burkina Faso, West Africa. Davis says, "I wanted to put my international affairs education into practice and learn development on the ground." So he became a health volunteer in Rambo, where his focus was Guinea worm eradication.

"The core of development is health and education," he says. "After coming back to attend grad school, CDC was an obvious choice as the next step. I use my experiences from Peace Corps everyday. I work with governments and international organizations all over the world, especially in water-san activities. Without the knowledge of living somewhere for two years and seeing the challenges many communities face in the developing world I would have no firm understanding on how to proceed with projects and activities on the ground and be successful."

Over the recent President’s Day weekend, Davis visited two great friends he met in the Peace Corps eight years ago. "I am seeing my friend Will and his Burkinabe wife Kartou raise two beautiful twins in San Diego and my friend Anne from DC enjoying her new job at the State Department."

The people bring back happy memories, he says. But there were tense times too. "The bad- oh just being caught in a little coup d´etat on Christmas eve in Abidjan, Cote d´ Ivoire in 1999. The machine guns going off all night weren´t quite as nice as church bells usually are!"

Davis, who speaks "rusty French," says "The reality is it takes time to gain trust and to get buy-in from local counterparts. Taking the time to build strong relationships will help lead to sustainability."