“These moments in history, when you have this kind of president, are rare.”

Rajiv Shah was sworn in as the head of the United States Agency for International Development, he stopped by to see its rapid response center, which on that day stood empty and still.

Twelve hours later, an earthquake devastated Haiti, and for the next two months the center became Dr. Shah’s home. A brainy, 37-year-old physician with little government experience, Dr. Shah found himself coordinating a desperate emergency relief effort under the gaze of President Obama.

The pace has barely let up : floods in Pakistan, the surge of aid workers into Afghanistan, a top-to-bottom review of American foreign assistance .

But for this politically astute son of Indian immigrants from Ann Arbor, Michigan, who is now the highestranking Indian-American in the Obama administration, it is his ambitious campaign to rebuild Usaid that will ultimately determine his success or failure in Washington.

“He’s inherited leadership of an agency that was nearly broken over the last two decades,” Richard C. Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said before his death last month .

Interviews with several Usaid employees suggest that Dr. Shah has begun to re-energize the agency .

“The initial reaction was ‘Oh, my God, he’s so young,’ ” said Pamela White, a 29-year Usaid veteran . “But that never bothered me. ”

The heyday of Usaid dates back to 1968, when it had 18,000 workers running programs in Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa - a vibrant legacy of John F. Kennedy’s call for the United States to reach beyond its borders. But after years of debilitating budget cuts the agency now has fewer than 9,000 employees and, during the Bush administration, it lost its policymaking role to the State Department. As the agency has withered, private philanthropies like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have taken its place . So it is perhaps no accident that Dr. Shah is a Gates F oundation alumnus; he ran its agriculture program and developed a $1.5 billion fund to finance vaccinations.

Dr. Shah acknowledges he was always drawn to the political arena. The son of an engineer for Ford Motor Company and a school administrator, he graduated from the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania medical school, but soon became a health-policy adviser to Al Gore’s presidential campaign.

“I’m a chronic complainer when we’re not in power,” Dr. Shah said of his decision to join the Obama administration. “I believe that these moments in history, when you have this kind of president, are rare.”

Dr. Shah can be deferential in public appearances with higher-level officials. But he is not shy about his plans, saying he seeks to bring better monitoring and analytical rigor to the agency. He wants to implant Gatesstyle entrepreneurialism, championing ideas that come from beyond its usual circle of contractors.

Dr. Shah’s boss, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, has largely won an internal administration debate over whether Usaid should stay under the State Department.

With Usaid in so many places, many of Dr. Shah’s headaches stem from being too much in demand. He plays down expectations. “We have to be honest with ourselves about what is the goal of different programs,” he said.

“The only good thing that came out of the Haiti earthquake is that it raised Raj Shah to be a partner of the president,” said David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, which advocates for aid to alleviate hunger and poverty.


By MARK LANDLER