Reflections on a United Nations' Career

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Ian Howie, Associate Professor, Nossal Institute for Global Health, University of Melbourne, and Adjunct Professor, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, has spent more than 35 years working in the field of international development. The bulk of this time was spent with the United Nations as a career official and included multi-year assignments as the United Nations Population Fund's representative in China (with responsibilities also for Mongolia and North Korea), Viet Nam, Ghana, Rwanda, and Papua New Guinea. Reproductive rights were integral to these appointments, especially when negotiating government policies. Professor Howie also spent seven years at UN Headquarters, New York, following his appointment as the Chief of the Division of Human Resources. Earlier, he served as Chief Technical Adviser with the International Labour Organisation managing primary healthcare projects in rural Bangladesh and, following his plotting of a unique model delivering health services at village level, oversaw its adoption in the plantation sector in Sri Lanka, and in the industrial estates of Kenya and the slums of Nairobi.

Chapter 1. From Melbourne and Back Again.- Chapter 2. Welcome to the UN Family.- Chapter 3. Learning by Doing: Bangladesh.- Chapter 4. A Success? Sri Lanka.- Chapter 5. From East to West: Kenya.- Chapter 6. Even Further West: Ghana.- Chapter 7. The Population Challenge: China.- Chapter 8. Surviving in the People's Paradise: DPRK.- Chapter 9. You Must be Mad: UN Headquarters.- Chapter 10. No More Business as Usual: Viet Nam.- Chapter 11. Life After Death: Rwanda.

"This book will certainly educate IR students in the sort of career possible for a humanitarian aid official in the UN system. ... Students of IR will find much to prepare them for the competitiveness of UN recruitment. It will show them the highs and lows of UN service, and the reality that serendipity and good luck, and (still better) friends in the right places, often determine our career trajectory." (Martin Duffy, E-International Relations, e-ir.info, October 14, 2022)

“This book will certainly educate IR students in the sort of career possible for a humanitarian aid official in the UN system. … Students of IR will find much to prepare them for the competitiveness of UN recruitment. It will show them the highs and lows of UN service, and the reality that serendipity and good luck, and (still better) friends in the right places, often determine our career trajectory.” (Martin Duffy, E-International Relations, e-ir.info, October 14, 2022)