Episode 4: Women in Leadership

Karin Sham Poo paved the way for women in senior leadership positions in both the banking sector and UNICEF. She was the first woman to achieve a managerial position at the Christiania Bank in 1970 — and ultimately served as the banks Senior Vice President from 1982 to 1985. She was recruited to UNICEF in 1985 to serve as the comptroller or finance director and in 1987 was promoted to Deputy Executive Director at the Assistant Secretary General level where she served until 2004 when she retired. After retirement she served as Interim Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict at the Under Secretary General level in 2005 and later as UNICEF special Envoy to the Caribbean on a part time basis from 2005–2010. She joins us from New York City, USA.

She speaks to us about:

• what it was like to be the first woman at a director level in UNICEF

• her experiences working with the legendary Jim Grant

• the importance of multilateral cooperation

• the qualities of a good leader - and much more.

Transcript

Intro: I think that it is very important that particularly international development focus on partnerships with governments. And that it is important that they do not have their own agendas but to think about the cultural background of the country or the segments of the country that is assisted, and to make sure that it is not too many strings attached.

Safa: Welcome to the Rethinking Development Podcast. My name is Safa and I will be your host as we speak with and learn from development practitioners of all ages and affiliations around the world. Each week we aim to rethink ethical behaviour and best practices through the lived experience and personal reflections of different practitioners and leaders. Our guest today is Karin Sham Poo. Mrs Sham Poo has a long and distinguished career with UNICEF. She’s originally from Norway where she first worked in the banking sector for some years. She was the first woman to achieve a managerial position at the Christiania Bank in Oslo in 1970 and ultimately served as the bank’s Senior Vice President from 1982 to 1985. She was recruited to UNICEF in 1985 to serve as the Controller or Finance Director and in 1987 she was appointed as UNICEF’s Deputy Executive Director at the Assistant Secretary General level where she served until 2004 when she retired. After retirement she continued to serve as interim Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict and later as UNICEF Special Envoy to the Caribbean on a part time basis from 2005 to 2010. In 2018 she published her autobiography entitled On My Terms. Mrs Sham Poo, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today.

Karin: Oh it is my pleasure.

Safa: At the beginning of your book, you detail how you were first recruited to UNICEF for the position of Finance Director. And you mentioned how Jim Grant, UNICEF’s Executive Director at the time had called you to let you know you had been chosen for the position. Can you please tell us a bit about that time and how you felt transitioning from the banking sector to UNICEF?

Karin: Well, it was very exciting because as you can appreciate, even though in the beginning I was the Finance Director of UNICEF, it was a very different area then I’d been working with for many years. And just to come into an international development agency was something that I had no experience from, even though I actually had heard about international development at a very early age. And I think I would like to tell you briefly about that because that was not included in the book. In 1956 which is a long time ago, one of our teachers at that time, and I was at the last year of primary school, told us about a very interesting experiment that Norway would do — they would assist India, in the state of Kerala, to improve their fishing industry. Norway had of course a long, long experience in the fishing industry so they sent experts and some financial assistance to Kerala to improve the fishing industry. And that made such a big impact on me. So 40 years later, when I as a UNICEF Deputy Executive Director visited Kerala, I actually asked whether I could see some of the fishing industry and I saw a very thriving fishing industry and the state of Kerala, as you may know, is one of the richest states of India.

Safa: Wow, that’s amazing that you were able to go back — as the position of Deputy Executive Director and really visit these projects that you had heard about.

Karin: Yes, I found that so interesting. And I really told some of the people I met the story.

Safa: Fantastic. You also mentioned that you, you quickly found out that at that time you were the only woman at the director level, at the UNICEF headquarters. How did you feel about that realization?

Karin: Well, it wasn’t so difficult in many ways because as you mentioned, I had been working in the banking industry for more than 20 years in Norway and that was a very male dominated industry. So I was used to that. That also helped me a lot in the beginning, but I was very happy when I first met two other female directors at UNICEF at the regional level, one in Latin American and the Caribbean and one for East Africa.

Safa: Great. So they became kind of your collaborators and your peers.

Karin: Absolutely.

Safa: And in the position of finance director, what could you tell us a bit about your responsibilities, what you came to learn about the UNICEF operations at the time?

Karin: Well, first of all, it was very challenging because the Controller up till then had mostly been at headquarters and not gone to the field to understand what was going on. So I decided very early that I really needed to go and see what UNICEF was doing in the field. It was also a challenging time because some of the contributions to UNICEF was not forthcoming as planned. And UNICEF had maybe spent more than they had planned for. So I had to take the difficult decisions to reduce some of our spending the first couple of years. But it turned out very well and things worked well and I got a lot of support from the Executive Director at that time, Jim Grant.

Safa: Could you tell us a bit about working with him? Because he’s of course a very iconic character in the history of UNICEF.

Karin: It was very exciting. I learned a lot from him and he was a type of person who was very focused on achieving results. I think he was one of the first ones in the international development community that wanted to have specific goals to be set. Whether it was to vaccinate children or in other areas, focus on children. And I think that made a big difference. And he would look at you, we had steel blue eyes and he would look at you and he said, what do you think? And he always of course wanted a very constructive answer.

Safa: So he was very open to speaking with his peers and his colleagues and having discussions about the issues he thought were important?

Karin: Yes, very much. He didn’t like bad news. But if you could come with bad news and a solution, which I had to do from time to time then it was okay.

Safa: I see. But could you also tell us a bit about maybe the challenges or the ethical issues that you came across in the position of Finance Director that perhaps you felt that you needed to change or reform?

Karin: Well I felt that it was important that we had good accountability at all levels, both internally in UNICEF but also vis-a-vis our partners. And one of the very positive things with UNICEF was that our programs of cooperation were really programs of cooperation. They were not UNICEF programs alone, but that also meant that you had to really have strict accountabilities at all levels. And sometimes that was challenging — and also to make sure that staff did not misuse their positions.

Safa: Right. And in your position as the Finance Director, did you have influence on situations where there were cases of misuse of authority?

Karin: That actually happened after I became the Deputy Executive Director of operations during the years and that was often very challenging and difficult, but they had to be dealt with.

Safa: So after a year of being the Finance Director you transitioned to this new role, could you tell us about how that transition was and how you felt about the new responsibilities you had taken on?

Karin: I found it very exciting. Of course it was a very broad area that I had an overall responsibility for. It was human resources, finance, supply and procurement — just to mention a few. But both Jim Grant and then the new Executive Director, Carol Bellamy, often gave me opportunities and responsibilities over and above what was on paper, my responsibility. So I had the opportunity to travel, to visit a large number of countries where UNICEF had programs of cooperations, some of them very difficult countries in challenging situations. And that gave me a good opportunity to make sure that UNICEF moved forward in the right direction.

Safa: In your book you mention participating in the UNICEF executive board meetings where there are representatives from different Member States of the UN and they attend. Could you speak to us about what it was like to try to introduce some ideas or reforms?

Karin: UNICEF executive board meetings consist of a large number of member states. The elected members, thirty six, plus any other country could meet as an observer. So it’s more like an assembly than a business board meeting. So you had to be very focused. You had an agenda , of course, you had a chairperson of the board, elected for one year at the time. So we had to work with them and know how to make sure that you went through what the board needed to take decisions on. And sometimes of course, because there were individual member states, they have their own agendas. So you had to make sure that it went in the right direction. And that could sometimes be challenging with so many people. And each member state also can be not one person, but a delegation. So we were talking about a few hundred people present at anytime.

Safa: And so a part of your role was working in a multilateral environment, working with leaders from different countries. Could you tell us a bit about maybe the challenges, but also the interesting aspects of working in that type of multilateral environment in a position of leadership?

Karin: Well, it was very challenging, as I said, from time to time, but we also had informal consultations before the board meeting with some key members states that we knew had certain agendas to make sure that they understood where UNICEF wanted to go in certain situations. And of course, as always, when you have people from all over the world with different agendas, different cultural backgrounds, you have to take that into account. But also to make sure that, for example, donor countries did not steer UNICEF in a way that was not beneficial to the development community.

Safa: And could you tell us more about that? How, how did you ensure that that didn’t happen?

Karin: Well we had to do that through sometimes bilateral discussions, sometimes with a group of people to make sure that what they wanted to be influenced, particularly the donor community, that maybe they could rather do that bilaterally than through UNICEF programs of cooperation and UNICEF activities. So that was often how we dealt with it. But that could sometimes be challenging.

Safa: I can imagine. You mentioned that you were, you insisted on taking a lot of field visits and visiting UNICEF country offices in your travels and in your work. Did you feel that over the years, UNICEF programs and services, were having a positive social impact? And how, how was this something that you were able to see or measure or how did you feel about that?

Karin: Programs of cooperation were normally for four to five years, apart from maybe if you had situations where you had manmade disasters or natural disasters — and they were often shorter term program activities. But the programs of corporations, as I said, had certain specific goals, targets to achieve and that was what we tried to measure as much as possible. When financial assistance and human assistance of experts were provided — that it was clear goals set to achieve and to work with countries at the local level was also very important.

Safa: Was there a part of this work that you really cherished the most or you found the most rewarding at that time in those years?

Karin: Yes. I would say that one of the advantages of being a woman is that I had the opportunity to meet other women at grassroots level, independent of religion or culture. I had a greater opportunity to do so in situations where it could be more difficult for men. And for me that was fantastic opportunity — since I always had focused on women’s issues — to see how we could use women as a tool to achieve an improvement of the situation, both for women and children.

Safa: And over the years, did you find that increasingly more women were employed in UNICEF in positions of leadership? Did that change over time?

Karin: Oh yes. Jim Grant actually was also a type of leader who understood the importance to have more women in leadership positions. When I joined UNICEF, UNICEF had around 25% women in what was called professional positions and he wanted a goal to improve that. He wanted to achieve — by 1990 — he wanted to achieve at least 40% women in professional positions. And he asked me, as the Deputy, when I became the Deputy Executive Director to particularly focus on that. So when we were hiring staff for professional positions, I wanted to make sure that we had always female qualified candidates and if we didn’t have that, I wanted to take another round to see whether we could get some more female candidates qualified with the right background.

Safa: I see.

Karin: And we achieved 40% by 1990.

Safa: That’s fantastic. That’s a great number, that’s a great increase, I’m sure, from the time when you began, it was just you in a position of leadership.

Karin: Yeah. But this was not just at the leadership position. It was professional positions, which is from, you know, the junior professional to the senior professional. It was, took a little longer to increase the number of women at director level. But yes, when I left, there were a number of women at that level too.

Safa: One big social event that had happened in the 1990s was the end of apartheid in South Africa. And I had read that there was a Committee Against Apartheid where UNICEF had made some speeches. Could you tell us a bit about that time and the role that UNICEF had played in terms of condemning apartheid or in general, just advocating for women and children’s rights and social justice issues?

Karin: UNICEF was very active too try to improve the situation for children and women in Southern Africa, not only in South Africa itself. And had in a number of key committees at the UN, including the Special Committee on Apartheid, made very strong comments on the need to really do something with it. We also actually were very careful to make sure that we didn’t use suppliers or banks that were not consistent when it came to apartheid. So we looked at the list of black listed companies — to put it like that, and I made sure that we did not use them. So it wasn’t just the program activities, but we also made sure that all the internal procedures that we followed were consistence with that.

Safa: Wow. I see. So there was also a movement of kind of boycotting or divesting from companies that had been, had been back listed. So did you feel that UNICEF and UN agencies played a, played a sizeable role in the anti-apartheid movement at that time?

Karin: Yes. I mean, I came into the pitch fairly late in this, but I felt strongly that UNICEF played a very important role, yes. And the rest of the UN system.

Safa: Sometimes some people who work with UN agencies, with UNICEF, who work in more emergency situations or in humanitarian aid settings, they risk their lives or sadly some are abducted or imprisoned — were there any such cases that happened during your time as Deputy Executive Director and were there steps that you had to take in that role in terms of communicating with their family or just in terms of the response of the organization to these kind of sad circumstances?

Karin: Yes, unfortunately we had a, a number of sad circumstances in addition to other accidents like two plane crashes. So I had always the, you know, the difficult task together with key people from our department of human resources to contact families, to meet with families and also to make sure that other staff members got the necessary support. And we made sure that they got the necessary psychological support. And we actually hired staff, that was attached to the division of human resources, to give staff that had experienced these tragedies, the necessary support and help.

Safa: Self care and access to these tools and resources in a time of trauma is very necessary. Can you also speak to us about perhaps the overall workplace culture that you tried to promote at the agency? Were there some particular commitments or goals that you really wanted to achieve in terms of the type of workplace culture that UNICEF had at that time?

Karin: Yes, even though the Executive Director himself was very supportive of both men and women at the workplace,, UNICEF was, as the rest of the UN system, a very male dominated culture. And issues like sexual harassment was unfortunately — took place and had to deal with that in a number of occasions. And also to develop a policy to try to prevent it from happening, and also to see what you could do to make sure that people understood that this was unacceptable behaviour.

Safa: So did you feel that over the years progress was made?

Karin: I feel that progress was made, but I saw actually recently that the new Executive Director had a study made and it was not too complimentary what came out of it. So I think still a lot needs to be done. Of course it’s already quite some time since I retired from UNICEF at the end of 2004. So I do not know what happened during that almost 15 year period. I was a little surprised actually to see some of the things that came out of this unfortunate study. But at least during my time we tried to do as much as possible. It doesn’t mean that everything was perfect, but we took very decisive actions if things came up that was unacceptable behaviour. Everything from dismissing people to demoting them.

Safa: I see. It’s interesting you mentioned that because I was just reading this this morning, the results of the independent task force on workplace, gender discrimination, sexual harassment and abuse of authority. So the results of it have been revealed this week. So for any of the listeners who are interested you can definitely read that report online and read the Executive Director’s response to it as well. As you say, even though the time has passed, there seems to be some problems that are prevalent, but not just in UNICEF, not just in the UN system, but globally in all organizations. I also wanted to ask you about the, the importance of language. Language is a tool that can be used for very positive impact, but can also be very sensitive and a delicate issue. It can cause backlash in certain circumstances. So in your time as the Deputy Executive Director where you had to present keys, key addresses or key speeches or speak with a variety of different partners and actors, were you involved in the writing of your speeches and could you speak to us a bit about your experiences with just ensuring the correct language was used? The correct sentiment was expressed?

Karin: Yes, I was always very much involved. I mean we had speech writers who did sort of the outline, after I told them more or less what I wanted to say. But after I got the first draft, I always made sure that they I went through it very carefully. I wanted the language to be my language and to also make sure that I was thinking all the time about the receiving end, depending on where I was going to speak. So for me that was always very important.

Safa: And was it something you felt comfortable doing, speaking publicly and addressing big crowds?

Karin: Oh yes, yes. I actually had done that before I joined UNICEF, so I felt pretty comfortable doing it. Of course, as you are well-aware, English is not my mother tongue and even though I had a fair knowledge of English before I joined UNICEF, I needed of course a little more experience in speaking well in English. And that’s why I always wanted to make sure that I used a language that was my language and not too complicated using words that I didn’t feel comfortable with.

Safa: I see. So that the message and the emotion really got across.

Karin: Exactly.

Safa: Were there also times in your career where you perhaps disagreed with the approaches or the ideas of your supervisors or your peers and, and how were you able to navigate disagreements where you felt strongly about a situation that was at odds with your colleagues?

Karin: Well my supervisor was the Executive Director — Jim Grant and Carol Bellamy. So if I had any disagreements with them, I would go to them alone. I would not take up that disagreement in a public forum. I always dealt with it on a one to one basis and it was — the few times I had disagreements, which wasn’t often — it was dealt with.

Safa: I see. So more of a one to one personal engagement.

Karin: Yes.

Safa: And in these, in these times where you were having personal conversations, did you feel that you learned a lot from your supervisors and they set really good examples for you or there were inspiring moments between you in terms of ideas or best practices — or just their approaches to the work that you were doing?

Karin: I learned a lot, but then of course we also had tense situations if we had any disagreements. But we always talked it over and it was not creating any problems for me.

Safa: And over the years did your understanding of what success means or what having impact in your, in your role mean — did that understanding change or how would you define success for you in that time, in that position?

Karin: Well, that’s an interesting question. I never thought about it exactly that way, but I think my answer would be that, if the overall goals of UNICEF was achieved, that was indirectly also success for me. When I saw that the situation of children and women improved. That was indirectly success also for me — being one of the many players that were able to achieve that. So I, I never thought about it as a personal success but I looked at it more as a collective success.

Safa: I see — an organizational achievement. And on the other side of success of course there is circumstances of perhaps failure or not achieving something you or the organization intended to achieve, which is sometimes inevitable in work — in everyday work. Sometimes we have failures. So could you perhaps give us an example or speak to us a bit about what you learned from the kind of situations where something didn’t work out or I guess there was a failure in some way.

Karin: My approach was always to see whether we could do it a different way. Whether we could look at it in a different way to see whether we may be needed a little longer time to achieve what we wanted to achieve. And, and I didn’t look at it as failure that was going to be there forever.

Safa: So just something that required more time. Social change often requires a lot of time and time is an issue when it comes to perhaps programs that have a certain life cycle or certain number of years -do you think that if the situation meant that something needed to have more time invested into it, do you think overall the organization was able to offer that?

Karin: I think the combination of even a little bit more time, but also sometimes changing the approaches. I think that combination often were able to help us to achieve the results that we had set.

Safa: And did you find that over the years UNICEF began to incorporate new strategies or new technologies, new tools in the activities that they had?

Karin: Oh, yes. I mean, over the time I was in UNICEF for, from when I started, of course we were not even really computerized. So that by itself was a big improvement when we could communicate with each other in a much more rational way. Because when you have offices all over the world, you have all the time differences you can think of and you didn’t need to be woken up at three o’clock in the morning with a phone call because they couldn’t manage to get through at any other time. Then you could easily communicate via email, for example. So that by itself was a big improvement. And also that all the goals that we had set- we could use technology that we couldn’t use in the past, whether it was to try to have, for example, distant learning for children in a remote area where they didn’t have schools, but access to computers through UNICEF. That was another big improvement.

Safa: I see. That’s so interesting. As you say, just the fact of putting everything on to computers and using the internet was a big change. Over the year what motivates you? Do you, in your work, what, what were you driven by and what were you motivated by year after year?

Karin: Well, I found it all the time very exciting to work for an organization like UNICEF, which was, as I said earlier, very different from what I’d been doing before. And the motivation was to see, you know, women and children’s lives being improved in many, many countries in the world. And that by itself was a great motivation.

Safa: And at that time where you decided to retire, how did you feel about that, that, that end of that chapter in your life?

Karin: Well, I decided to retire even though the retirement age at the United Nations, including UNICEF, at that time was 60, which of course is very low now. It is 65, I think, or 67 events. At my level I did not have to retire, but I decided that another change of Executive Director I knew was coming — because the Executive Directors can only sit for two terms and I didn’t know who would come. So I decided that it was time for me to retire and do something else. Which I did — as you mentioned initially. So I think that also helped because it was a number of years, almost six years that I did other things after I retired as Deputy Executive Director. So it was a gradual retirement, I would say. And that helped a lot and made me able to focus, you know certain sayings, but in a different way than before. And I didn’t do as much traveling either because for the years with UNICEF, I traveled to more than 120 countries.

Safa: Wow.

Karin: Many of them many times. So that by itself made it a little easier on me.

Safa: And what would you say was the, perhaps the hardest or most challenging part of your role as Executive Director? As you mentioned, you traveled a lot, but were there other things that were, were more tiring or more challenging?

Karin: The difficult thing was always to go to countries where you particularly saw manmade disasters, wars, impact on children and to see children and you knew they would not survive many days. That was always very tough on me and I went to many many countries who had been affected by war and other manmade disasters.

Safa: I see, absolutely can be very emotionally draining as well. At times when you had to speak with or collaborate with governments who perhaps had other priorities or didn’t have the capacity to really invest in the wellbeing of the children of their countries, how did you feel about that? Or, or what were those situations like for you?

Karin: Well, I was always thinking about Jim Grant because he had this very interesting approach. He would look at people and say — “ want to go to war?” And they will look at you. “You want to go to war against poverty and to make sure that children’s situation is improving? “ I think that’s the advantage of working in an organization who focuses particularly on children, is that it’s very hard for even the most difficult leaders to say no, we are not interested in that. You will always hit that kind of a soft spot — if they ever had a soft spot- because some of them I’ve wonder — but still it was very, you know, hard for them to say, no, we are not interested. So you have to sort of use that angle to make sure that that at least they were willing to do something even though they may not have the right priorities and everything else.

Safa: So more of a, an emotional plea, more of an emotional strategy to get them to really feel moved.

Karin: Yeah. And you know, to say that you want your country to prosper in the future, you have to invest in children.

Safa: Absolutely. As children are the future generations.

Karin: Exactly.

Safa: What would you say you’ve learned to be the necessary qualities of a good leader? We live in a time where global leaders are criticized. There are often a lot of situations where leadership is lacking. What would you say are the key characteristics that are very important or necessary for good leadership and good multilateral relationships at this time that we are living in today?

Karin: Well, I think communication, dialogue, listening — and also to make sure that you put yourself in the other parties head would be very important. I think the communication, good communication at all levels, both internally and externally is extremely important, but also to listen, listen and listen and not just think that you know everything.

Safa: Right. The humility to really listen to one another and be willing to learn from one another.

Karin: Absolutely.

Safa: After you retired, you mentioned you went on to serve as a Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict and then as the UNICEF Special Envoy to the Caribbean. Could you tell us about those experiences and maybe perhaps some of the, the best memories you have of that time or the ways that you felt those positions and those roles contribute to the goals of UNICEF and achieving UNICEF’s mandate?

Karin: Yes. Of course the first one, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict was only for like half a year. It was very exciting because UNICEF had been working with that office, actually was very instrumental to have that office established. It was Graça Machel who was, among other things, the wife of Nelson Mandela the last years of his life, who was the person who did the study on the impact of children and armed conflict, and which one of the recommendation was to have an office at the UN. And so for me, I knew about the office work very well, and it was also very important to get it through a difficult period and I was very happy to get the core functions of that office in as a part of the UN regular budget. So they did not only have to rely on extra budgetary funding. So that was very interesting and to make sure that they had some stuff because when I came into that office a number of positions were vacant. So that was a very exciting period and to speak to the Security council and to make sure that the children and armed conflict was on the Security Council agenda and debated seriously was also very important. And as I said, a good cooperation with UNICEF from the start — long before I came into the picture, and continues as far as I know. On being UNICEF Special Envoy to the Caribbean — that was also very interesting. My husband was born in Trinidad and Tobago and we spend around half of the year in that country and I knew about things that had happened in the Caribbean before, since I had a special interest already — so for me it was a good opportunity to assist in the region. And I went to most of the countries in the region at different occasions and I spent a few months in Barbados and also a few months in Jamaica the following year in addition to going to some key meetings and speaking.

Safa: I see. And the role of Special Envoy, could you tell us more about the responsibilities of that role?

Karin: Well, it was a very flexible role because I was assisting, as I said, the region. For example, in Barbados during a period of time, they did not have a representative. They had an excellent deputy representative but they needed to have somebody during a period when they were putting a new country program together. So I actually spent then a few months there and the same with Jamaica. So they were also without a representative for a number of months. So I went not as the representative but to assist, you know, the office and the deputy until a new representative was in place. That was a very interesting and I also as I said went to a number of the other countries where we focused on issues that are very relevant in that part of the world. The Caribbean is, is a fairly developed region, but they also have a number of issues with negative impact on children that need to be focused on. So it was very exciting. And as I said, knowing the region fairly well, or at least some of the counties very well helped me to have the right focus.

Safa: I see. And eventually you had the idea of writing your autobiography, which became a reality and you publish the book in 2018. Could you tell us about what inspired you to do that and what the writing process was like reflecting on your career and your life up to that point?

Karin: Well I’d been thinking about it for a long time, but you know one thing is to think, another thing is to sit down and do it. So I started sort of gradually and tried to structure it in a way that I thought was meaningful. What I found was that — I didn’t find it difficult to write in English per se. But what was interesting, was that when I was writing about my childhood, which was important to do as a part of my life story, all my memories are in Norwegian — memories cannot just be translated. You have to think about them in a different way. But that was exciting and different than I’d thought it would be to sit down and sort of rethink my memories in a different language. But I was very happy with the result and I finished and to have it published. And I also had support from my granddaughter and her mother tongue is basically English so that helped a lot. She did a lot of editing for me and that was great. She has a masters in journalism, so she was the right person to ask.

Safa: I see. That’s great. You collaborated together. During the writing process when you were thinking about your career, were you surprised about the, the memories that stood out for you or the reflections that stood out for you as you were in the writing process?

Karin: Well, sometimes — as I said, I had already thought about the structure and sometimes, you know, I had to think what I wanted to write about because as I, that in the book, this is not a book about all my, what I was doing in UNICEF. That is an important part of it. But that’s only one part of it. So I’m sure I could have written a book just about my years in UNICEF as one book and they would have been much more detailed. But that was not the purpose of my book. It was more focused events or experiences that had had an impact me and making me the person I am today.

Safa: Absolutely. As you say, the experiences we have, that shape us, have a big impact on all aspects of our lives and it can be very healthy to really think back and reflect on how we got to where we got and our overall life experiences. When you think about the current state of world affairs at the current day, do you think that UN agencies and UNICEF, they still have a very important role to play as they perhaps did at the beginning when they were founded after World War II? How, how do you feel about the potential or change or positive social change by UN agencies currently as opposed to in the past?

Karin: Well, it’s of course a very different world today compared to 1945 when the United Nations was established or 1946 when UNICEF was established and the purpose why UNICEF originally was established to improve the situation for children after the impact of the second World War. But I feel that an organization like UNICEF, and I want to speak specifically about UNICEF and not all the other UN agencies — I think an organization like UNICEF is still very much needed — very different approaches, very different focus. There are still issues in the world, in the areas of health, survival. But not as much as even when I joined UNICEF, there were many many more children under five dying every year unnecessarily — but there are other issues that need to be focused on and you see them not only in developing countries but also in industrialized countries or countries in transition between industrialization and development. You see it on bullying at school, on harassment. You see also the positive and negative impacts of social media which I think is something that an organization like UNICEF should look in even more into. And other organizations for that sake. Because I can see both positive but a lot of negative impacts as well. And you see children sitting with their tablet or their phone just looking down — do they play anymore? To play for children is a very important thing. I was wondering if children ever stop playing. And that has a very important impact on the development of the future generations.

Safa: Absolutely. As you say, there are many modern day social issues that impact children that more work, more interventions, more research and more advocacy should be made on. Absolutely. As, as someone who had prior experience in the private sector, could you also tell us your thoughts about the importance of working with the private sector or the benefits that that can out offer UNICEF or similar organizations?

Karin: I think it’s important to work with the private sector in many areas. Of course big private sector companies want to sometimes improve their own image and they use that by assisting, which is mostly very positive. And I think development agencies, not only UNICEF, can take advantage of that and work with the private sector to see how they can achieve things together. UNICEF has actually always worked a lot with the private sector, whether it is to get the right prices on vaccines for developing countries, to work with suppliers to get supply that is relevant to the various countries where UNICEF has programs of cooperation. But I think even more can be done in that area. Yeah. And I think that corporate social responsibility from the private sector continues to be very important.

Safa: As we wrap up here, is there anything you yourself would further like to add in terms of any of the experiences you’ve had over the years or in terms of any ethical issues that you think maybe we didn’t touch on that you think are important to think about and be reflective on?

Karin: I think that it is very important, from my point of view, that particularly international development focus on partnerships with governments. And that it is important that they do not have their own agendas. But to think about the cultural background of the country or the segments of the country that is assisted , to make sure that not there are not too many strings attached. And also to make sure that it is appreciated that all countries have different cultural backgrounds and that it doesn’t mean that everything in one country is bad and in another country is good, but that we’ll learn from each other’s cultural background to see how we can achieve the goals together.

Safa: Absolutely. We all come from different backgrounds, have different values and different priorities. But the collaboration, the dialogue and the working together is, is so important. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and for speaking with us today. I really enjoyed reading your book and I just want to let our audience know that they can order it online and just thank you so much again for spending time to share your experiences and your reflections and your knowledge with us today.

Karin: Thank you so much. I found it very exciting and interesting.

Safa: We really appreciate it and we, we really thank you for all the years of service you provided UNICEF and especially for paving the way for a women in the organization.

Karin: Thank you again.

Safa: Thank you so much. Thank you also to our listeners. To continue to keep up with our podcast, please subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and Google podcast platforms where you can also rate and review our episodes and share it with your friends. If you have any listener questions that you would like to me to ask future guests, please feel free to email them to us. I look forward to continuing similar conversations with you all in the future weeks. Until then, take care.