Mary Catherine Phee

Molly Phee
Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs
Nominee
Assuming office TBD
President	Joe Biden
Secretary	Antony Blinken
Succeeding	Robert F. Godec (acting)
Director of the African Development Foundation
Nominee
Assuming office TBD
President	Joe Biden
Succeeding	Jack Leslie
Acting Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs
In office December 12, 2017 – March 28, 2018
President	Donald Trump
Preceded by	Tracey Ann Jacobson
Succeeded by	Kevin Moley
2nd United States Ambassador to South Sudan
In office July 23, 2015 – August 22, 2017
President	Barack Obama Donald Trump
Preceded by	Susan Page
Succeeded by	Thomas Hushek
Personal details
Born	1963 (age 57–58) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Alma mater	Indiana University, Bloomington (B.A.) Tufts University (M.A.)

Mary Catherine "Molly" Phee (born 1963) is an American diplomat with the rank of Minister Counselor. She was nominated to be U.S. Ambassador to South Sudan by President Barack Obama on September 17, 2014; and confirmed by the Senate June 24, 2015.^[1][2] She was sworn in on July 15, 2015,^[3] to replace Susan D. Page, who had resigned^[4] and served from 2015 until 2017.

Ambassador Phee was then named as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of International Organization Affairs and served as Acting Assistant Secretary until the appointment of Kevin Moley. Her assignment was curtailed by Moley, after which the U.S. Department of State Office of the Inspector General opened an investigation into allegations that the Assistant Secretary and others political appointees in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs used politicized and improper practices against career employees.^[5] Ambassador Phee is currently the Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation. On April 29, 2021, President Biden announced his intent to nominate Ambassador Phee as the next Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs.^[6]

Early life and education[]

Phee is from Chicago. She was an undergraduate at Indiana University, where she earned a B.A. She pursued graduate studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, earning an M.A. in Law and Diplomacy in 1989. As part of her graduate studies, she participated in an internship program with the United Nations Environment Programme that involved travel and study in Kenya.

Career[]

Molly Phee (center) at school building dedication and ribbon cutting ceremony.

Following her graduate studies, Phee became a deputy press secretary to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.^[7][8]

Phee joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1991. Her assignments in the Foreign Service have included ones in Rome, Italy; Kuwait City, Kuwait; Cairo, Egypt; and Amman, Jordan and Washington, DC.

From 2003 to 2004, she served as the Senior Civilian Representative of the Coalition Provisional Authority to Maysan Province, Iraq ^[9][10]

Phee moved to New York in 2005 as counselor for political affairs at the U.S. mission to the United Nations, where on occasion sat in for then Ambassador John R. Bolton.

Phee served as Counselor for Political Affairs and Deputy Security Council Coordinator at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. Then in 2008, Phee then took an assignment in Italy as the regional affairs coordinator at the U.S. Embassy in Rome. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and General David Petraeus invited Phee to join the Joint Strategic Assessment Team established in 2007 to revise the U.S. strategy in Iraq. She then returned to Washington to serve as director for Iraq at the National Security Council. In that role she was responsible for coordinating the U.S. transition from military to civilian operations.

From 2011 to 2014, Phee served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. When President Obama nominated her to become Ambassador to South Sudan, she was already serving as Chief of Staff at the Office of the Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan.

When the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee did not immediately confirm Phee's nomination, several NGO's wrote to the committee urging it to quickly confirm the nomination, given the difficult situation in South Sudan. The organizations included Better World Campaign, The Enough Project, Humanity United, Jewish World Watch, International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, Oxfam America, Relief International, Save the Children, United to End Genocide, and Water for South Sudan. The NGO's protested that the U.S. had been without a confirmed Ambassador to South Sudan since August 2014. They noted that the absence of an ambassador in a country involved in a "deadly, costly and geopolitically destabilizing civil war" had limited the U.S. ability to successfully promote peaceful resolution.^[11]

In accepting the role of Ambassador in 2015, Phee was expected to oversee the relief effort of $456 million donated by the U.S. for over a million people displaced by the war, as well as revive the peace talks in Addis Ababa.^[12]

Personal[]

In addition to English, Phee speaks Arabic, French and Italian.^[13]

References[]