Speaker Ryan Ballow, a Diplomat at
U.S. Department of State
Photo Captions: Ryan Ballow, US Embassy Lome economic counselor posing with Eco Guards officials and Mr Tossou Datè K. Akpédjé, Regional Director of the Environment + Zoom shot Northbrook Rotary
Last week we had a great meeting that included speaker Ryan Ballow, a Diplomat at U.S. Department of State, Washington, District of Columbia, United States. First, he thanked Rotarians for the work they do especially the Polio eradication. In his work as a diplomat, Ryan is Rotarian-like in the mission he is on from our government.
Ballow who is fluent in Spanish, Arabic, French, gave an overview of his work. He grew up in Alaska where there were many military people but encouraged folks to consider work in the diplomatic corps. His recent travels include Bagdad, West Africa, Jordan and other areas in the Middle East where he stated, “the Secretary of State is the voice for good.”
He mentioned The Abraham Accords which according to Wikipedia: was a joint statement between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and the United States, reached on August 13, 2020.[1] It was subsequently also used to refer collectively to agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (the Israel–United Arab Emirates normalization agreement) and Bahrain, respectively (the Bahrain–Israel normalization agreement).
The statement marked the first normalization of relations between an Arab country and Israel since that of Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994. The original Abraham Accords were signed by the UAE's Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Bahrain's Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on September 15, 2020, at the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C.
Some other Ballow background from the State Department’s site from his time in Togo:
The embassy’s economic counselor, Ryan Ballow, handed over a lot of equipment and property donated by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to the Eco Guards of the Fazao-Malfakasaa National Park in Sokodé on Feb. 2. Tossou Datè K. Akpédjé, the Director of the Ministry of Environment based in Sokodé received the donation, which included over 800 items of clothing and a variety of cameras, binoculars, and spotting scopes.
The donated goods and equipment will help park rangers in their efforts to protect and conserve the wildlife living in the park. Fazao National Park is the largest of Togo’s national park and is home to a variety of species. The population of elephants, after being decimated by hunting and poaching in the 1990s, is at a very early stage of revival which requires close observation and protection from park rangers.
The donation was made possible through the efforts of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official Thomas Leuteritz, who was based in Lome in 2017 as an Embassy Science Fellow.
Twelve rural Togolese communities received financing for development projects thanks to the Ambassador’s Special Self-Help Fund of the U.S. Embassy. Mr. Ryan Ballow, the charge d’affaires, handed over checks to representatives from each community during a ceremony at the Embassy. The funds will be used to spur community based development in the areas of agriculture, animal husbandry, income-generation, education, and health.
For over 50 years the special self-help fund has supported small-scale, community-based development projects. The guiding principles of the initiative are:
– To improve the socio-economic conditions of the population,
– To impact as many people as possible, and
– To harness the initiative and aspirations of the community to promote continuity and self-sufficiency well after the Self Help funding has concluded.
For more information about how to apply, please follow this link: https://tg.usembassy.gov/fr/embassy-fr/posssibilites-de-financement/programmes-daide-au-developpement/
