About Allan J. “Alonzo” Wind

My Story

Allan J. “Alonzo” Wind is a senior leader with worldwide experience in the international development and humanitarian assistance arenas with the U.S. government and international NGO organizations. He has built partnership alliances between government, private sector and civil society nonprofits, as well as capacity building for NGO networks. He worked in a wide array of environments including kinetic situations and fragile state environments, on long and short-term assignments in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Mr. Wind is currently unsalaried Affiliate Faculty for the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University, the largest public university in the Commonwealth of Virginia. He is a member of the Rotary Club Washington Global and is the President Elect for 2027-2028.

He is a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), having worked for two decades on diplomatic assignments with USAID primarily overseas in Peru, Nicaragua, Angola, Nigeria, Iraq, Afghanistan and South Africa and other southern Africa countries. Most recently he served two years until December 2023 as the International Medical Corps Mission Director in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt), supervising a staff of seven expats of different nationalities and over 75 local Palestinian staff, in Gaza and Bethlehem. He also served on the UN OCHA Humanitarian Country Team and Advisory Board, and the Executive Committee of the Association for International Development Agencies (AIDA).

Mr. Wind previously worked for different INGOs in Ecuador, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, and the UK, also serving as the Global Programme Coordinator of the International Save the Children Alliance Secretariat.

Mr. Wind completed March 2026 a new book with his Palestinian poet co-author, Mohammed Arafat on their joint interfaith journey and exploration of responding to the Middle East crises. It launches March 21, the summer solstice and the traditional Persian New Year of Naw Ruz. It is called ONE CONVERSATION, TWO IDENTITIES, FOUR FAITHS: Gaza’s Heartbreak Through Questions, Faith and Friendship.

Mr. Wind is the author of the 2024’s A JEW IN GAZA: Humanitarian Heartbreak, Hubris and Horrors providing meaningful and thoughtful insights on the conflict between Gaza and the Palestinians and Israel. It was published last summer on Amazon, Barnes & Noble Press and other platforms and formats. He has offered over a dozen podcast interviews and public talks about international development, national security, international risk, management and leadership, following his earlier Amazon bestseller ANDEAN ADVENTURES, An Unexpected Search for Meaning. Many of these talks are accessible on YouTube.