Story highlights USAID's Green will look to private sector for ideas, engagement

Former Republican lawmaker and ambassador Mark Green was confirmed in August

Washington (CNN) The new leader of the premier US aid and humanitarian agency said Wednesday its ultimate goal should be to put itself out of business, even as he admitted the scale of global need is "truly extraordinary."

"I believe, philosophically, the purpose of foreign assistance is to end the need for its existence," said Mark Green, the new administrator at the US Agency for International Development, as he laid out plans to make the agency more streamlined and efficient by re-examining the way the US procures and distributes aid worldwide.

Green, a former lawmaker and ambassador, is taking on the challenge at a time when his agency's budget faces deep cuts. He pledged to examine all investments "sober-mindedly," and focus on building countries' resilience to deal with future crises so they're less reliant on foreign help.

Displaced people fleeing from Boko Haram incursions into Niger attend a World Food Programme (WFP) and USAID food distribution at the Asanga refugee camp near Diffa on June 16, 2016.

A former Republican congressman representing Wisconsin, Green was most recently the president of the International Republican Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization focused on promoting international democracy. His appointment reflects the Trump administration's focus on bringing private sector practices into government, an approach Green emphasized.

Speaking to reporters at the State Department, Green said he hadn't seen much of the controversy surrounding President Donald Trump's comments in which he appeared to equivocate Nazis and white supremacists with people protesting them in Charlottesville, Virginia.

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