Working in Peacekeeping and the UN November 10, 2011
Posted by Jeff Riley in : UN, international development , trackback
Thanks to a guest blogger for this entry. They are working in the UN, currently in Afghanistan. You can read more about the UN by searching for ‘United Nations’ on careerstagged.co.uk and on this blog.
The UN works in the field of socio-economic development, humanitarian aid as well as international relations and peacekeeping. The various UN agencies are present in over 192 countries in the world, helping the most vulnerable in times of humanitarian emergencies , delivering basic social services, supporting governments, and building institutions.
In countries in, or just coming out of, conflict, UN missions, specifically integrated peacekeeping missions, all the functions of the UN are brought together under one umbrella. In countries where a peace agreement has been reached, a peacekeeping mission helps enforce the agreement and rebuild the nation. In other countries, like Afghanistan, where conflict reigns, the UN focuses more on human rights, development and humanitarian relief.
The UN system brings together people from all nations and all disciplines. The UN agencies work in very specific technical areas, where it is necessary to be a technical expert in various fields. The technical staff in the UN agencies comprise medical doctors, agricultural specialists, political scientists, water engineers, teachers, economists etc. Everyone can join the UN, regardless of your discipline. In addition, there are a number of management and coordination roles that bring the work in the different sectors together to form a coherent and holistic response to complex situations.
Working for the UN in the field is less of a job, and more of a lifestyle. It is dynamic and ever changing by definition, as people who work for the UN move between countries and between different UN entities. Working in a political or peackeeping mission in a conflict or post-conflict country, in particular, is an even more specific lifestyle choice. Your job very much defines who you are, and you tend to move country every 2-3 years. You work for 6-8 weeks very intensely, and then you are entitled to a week off of ‘Rest and Recuperation’ cycles. In emergency situations, you work non-stop for how ever long the emergency lasts. You do not stop work in the evening , and go home leaving the office behind you; your weekends are not respected; you cannot just go away for the weekend or just take a day off. For six to eight weeks, depending on the country, you live and work within a specific social structure, your life is regulated by UN security rules like curfew or where you are allowed to live, where you are allowed to go out, and often even with whom, you are always ‘one duty’ whilst in your duty station. The impact of such a lifestyle on one’s personall life should not to be underestimated, especially for women. Partners are not always very accepting of such a career.
At the same time, if you do not want stability, working in a peacekeeping mission is extremely interesting and exciting work. You help shape policy and strengthen institutions, you are part of shaping nations and helping people to live better lives.You are , in many cases, part of history.
Peacekeeping missions have several components: political affairs, civil affairs (governance and rule of law, human rights) and in most cases the military and the civilian police. In an integrated UN mission, the UN agencies are also part of the UN mission. The Resident Coordinator’s Office, in which I work, is responsable for bringing these threads together.
I have been working with the UN system for over seven years and am a specialist in development in transition/post-conflict countries in Liberia, Haiti and Afghanistan. I have worked for the UN Development Programme, the World Bank and the UN Department of Peacekeeping, always within the field of development and humanitarian coordination. Concretely this means trying to coordinate aid agencies such as DFID, USAID, the Aga Khan Network, etc. in order to make aid efforts more coherent and hence more effective. This includes supporting governments to develop national policies and development strategies, building information management strategies and helping to organise international conferences.
Currently, I am in Afghanistan, where I have been for over a year and a half. I am the Deputy Head of the Resident coordinator’s Office, the office which is charged with coordinating the UN system. This entails bringing together all the different UN actors in the country; developing common strategies and policies, as well as bringing different actors together on specific issues of common interest such as the impact of a growing population on a country emerging from conflict or environmental sustainability or employment creation. I focus on communications, information management , monitoring and evaluation, all at the systematic level. Furthermore, I am specialised in all matters concerning gender and women’s empowerment, specifically within peacekeeping.
In my previous positions in Liberia and Haiti, my work included worked very closely with the Government, in particular with the Ministers of Finance and the Planning on developing aid policies, poverty reduction strategies, rebuilding national statistics’ system, etc.
In short, my job is extremely diverse and no such thing as a routine. It isn’t always exciting, there are a lot of processes and reporting to headquarters. However, all jobs have their boring sides, which is why it is so important for the rest of the work to be really worth it. The key to the job is to always keep the end game in sight, which is to improve the life of the people and support the most vulnerable. You need to be prepared to be extremely flexible and keep a clear head in an emergency, because often you really are dealing with life or death situations. You need to be able to react and think extremely quickly. Yet most of all, you have to deal with not always being able to help.
The hardest part of working in the field for the UN, is facing the people who are suffering every day, but all too often you can do nothing.
Comments»
Thank you for your article. As a graduate student I am currently looking at jobs. Could you please share with us how you started out in your career and what tips you can offer?