General Hierarchy of Ministries of Foreign Affairs

In bureaucracies, rank and hierarchy matters.  Particularly so I've found in the Asian context in both business and the diplomatic/development arenas.  Working abroad with the US Government, position rank is used as an indicator for who one's appropriate counterpart should be.  It would be a faux pas for a low ranking US Officer to directly contact a senior level official with a local Ministry.

Internally, USAID seems to me to be a fairly flat organization where first tour officers can comfortably chat with the Mission Director, but externally, it may be prudent to be cognizant of one's counterparts and their approach with the host government and to other US government agencies.  I've not heard of any internal USAID classes or discussions to know what counterpart rankings in the host government are, so I after asking around, this is a illustrative listing that might represent a typical Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

*Note, attache in this sense is in a illustrative MFA hierarchy.  Attache means "attached" so other ministry personnel in the diplomatic mission, ie. Defense Attache or Trade Attache, don't fit into this hierarchy in this manner.