TheJourneyVolume1 - Book - Page 72
#NextGenUNDP
Anthony Ngororano
Coun tr y o f O r igin :
UNDP Co u n t r y O f f ic e :
Date o f Ap po in tm e n t :
R WA N DA & UGA N DA
M AU R I TA N I A
M AY 2 019
“AS UNDP WE HAVE THE PRIVILEGE TO
COMPLEMENT AND SUPPORT THE
TENACITY, CREATIVITY, AND COURAGE
OF THE ORDINARY PEOPLE WE SERVE.”
A
s a child, I can say that I had a stable and
happy upbringing. But when I piece together
the different and often difficult life trajectories both my parents and grandparents
faced, I know that this stability was in no way a given.
Their journeys having been so intimately entwined with
the deeply disruptive, economic, social, and political
convulsions that have shaped Rwanda and Uganda over
the years, questions abounded: How did they and their
peers manage to overcome and adapt to life-defining
challenges? For example, how did they overcome being:
orphaned at an early age, amid economic and social
collapse? Forced into exile and permanent displacement?
Targeted as part of state-sanctioned identity-based
violence? What fuelled their remarkable achievements
(in some cases) in the face of such adversity?
From a very early age I was intrigued but also struggled
to bridge these dualities, invariably setting in motion the
personal and professional journey on which I find myself
today.
CAREER PATH
At one level, my educational and professional path has
been neither linear nor predictable, and I can only better
describe it as the result of a patchwork of experimentation, false starts, lucky breaks, and even disappointments.
This has resulted in my developing a “T-shaped” or
generalist profile, gained through a diverse mix of policy,
program, partnerships, and operations experience gained
in government, academia, investment banking, and three
UN Agencies.
At a deeper level, however, my life experiences from an
early age, at the crossroads between the Global North and
South, nurtured my central academic and professional
interest – understanding why some countries, communities, and enterprises “make it” and others don’t.
On this journey, I have been inspired by the ordinary
women and men in the countries I have served who
despite adversity, have surmounted incalculable odds
to achieve their aspirations. This is largely due to their
tenacity, creativity, and courage which as UNDP we
have the privilege to complement and support. I am also
inspired by my colleagues, peers, and mentors who have
demonstrated what it is to truly balance humility with the
achievement of great professional success and abilities.
CHALLENGES AND LIFE-DEFINING MOMENTS
Balancing the UN’s requirement of job mobility every few
years, with the need to maintain and nurture familial and
social ties to minimize the risk of “deracination” over time,
has proved quite challenging. Mindful of this, my decision
to leave the UN system to take up an exciting senior role
with my national government early on in my journey –
without the security of a leave of absence as this was not
an option –was a life-defining moment in many ways. The
choice was both a difficult and risky one. It took me way
out of my comfort zone and given the highly political and
complex nature of the role, exposed me to the real possibility of failure.
Having arrived from the diaspora, and therefore seen
by many as an outsider in my own country, added to the
challenge, and left me no option but to both quickly bolster
my existing support network and create new ones. I had
to do all this while also negotiating an extremely steep
learning curve.
In hindsight, aside from ratcheting up my mental
toughness, this decision contributed immensely to my
personal and professional growth. It also helped ground
me and cement my aspirations. Things just seemed to fall
into place thereafter.
BEING RESIDENT REPRESENTATIVE
When I heard about the UNDS Reform, my first thoughts
were around its political, institutional, and funding related
ramifications. It was also clear that important work lay
ahead to ensure that UNDP leverages this important ›
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