The Academy for Educational Development, a Washington-based international-aid charity that administers higher-education projects in Iraq and other countries, has been acquired by another nonprofit organization after several months of uncertainty about its future. While details of the deal are still being hammered out, the transition will not affect its education and development work, said leaders from both charities.
The academy, best known as AED, announced in March that it would close because of financial problems and was looking for a company or nonprofit to which it could transfer its programs and staff members.
The move came after the U.S. Agency for International Development suspended the charity from receiving new government awards after the agency’s inspector general accused AED of “misconduct” in programs in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The new arrangement will allow former AED programs to receive new financing from the federal government.
With more than 250 programs in the United States and 150 countries, AED operates a variety of health, education, and economic-development efforts. In higher education, it is perhaps best known for administering an exchange program to send top Iraqi students to colleges in America. The project, which is financed by the Iraqi government, had plans for some 300 Iraqis to come to the United States during the 2010-11 academic year. AED has also overseen a project that connects a half-dozen or so American universities to Iraqi institutions. The partnerships, which are paid for by the U.S. State Department, focus on curriculum development, online and distance education, career services, and other academic work.
In addition, AED works with higher-education institutions domestically in job training, early-childhood education, and other areas.
Those programs will continue as seamlessly as possible, said Albert J. Siemens, chief executive of FHI, formerly known as Family Health International, the charity based in Durham, N.C., that is acquiring AED.
“We are absolutely committed to support the programs that have been awarded to AED over the years and keep them as successful as they possibly can be,” he said.
Mr. Siemens’s organization and AED expect to complete their arrangement by the end of July, with the goal of maintaining most, if not all, of AED’s 2,000 or so employees around the world.
While FHI has historically focused on fighting diseases and improving health abroad, Mr. Siemens said taking over AED’s educational programs was a good fit as his nonprofit seeks to offer a wider range of assistance to poor people worldwide.
Gregory R. Niblett, who was named chief executive of AED in February, said despite the problems at the nonprofit organization, its higher-education projects and other programs have been relatively unaffected by the uncertainty of the last few months.
Kenneth M. Holland, who runs international programs at Ball State University, which has an AED-administered partnership with an Iraqi university, agreed. “The turmoil at AED didn’t affect our partnership with Tikrit University,” he said.
