Emily Fraser, UN Policy Officer and Climate Specialist
/Top Three Pieces of Career Advice:
Your career journey is not a race - It’s important to prioritise opportunities that promote your personal and professional growth, and not just the ones that help you reach your next goal as quickly as possible. After graduating from university, there’s a natural drive to reach a certain position and goal, but what’s important to remember is that once you've achieved it, there'll be another goal, and another goal and so on - there is no finish line.
Love what you do - If you love what you do, you do it well, but in addition to that, if you love what you do, you’re more likely to connect with others who also love what they do, and by having those people around you - colleagues and friends that are sharing the same journey and can share their experiences and lessons - it's a huge asset for your growth.
You are not alone - When you face challenges or feel unsure about how to navigate an issue or a role, you should remember that everybody is going through this experience called a ‘career journey’. By expressing concerns or vulnerabilities to others, you'll find that others also open up to you. Don't be afraid to reach out to people for advice, to mentors or peers, or to join networks, even if you don't feel comfortable reaching out to those you work directly with - these relationships are important for your wellbeing, as well as your career.
EDUCATION: MSc Applied Meteorology, University of Reading (UK), BA (Hons) Geography, University of Oxford (UK)
CAREER SO FAR: UNITAR (Specialist, Multilateral Diplomacy Programme, and Special Assistant to the Executive Director & UN Assistant Secretary-General), Asset Management (Manager, Group CEO Office), WHO (Consultant, Technical Advisory Group on Covid-19 Mortality Assessment)
LANGUAGES SPOKEN: English and French
AUTHOR: Sara Sajjad
How did your career journey begin and did you always know you wanted to work in the field of International Affairs?
I didn't know I was going to end up working in any of the jobs that I've worked in so far and I feel very lucky and grateful to have had the experiences I've had.
I studied Geography at the University of Oxford, and then Applied Meteorology at the University of Reading. I didn't know specifically what I wanted to go into so Geography gave me lots of opportunities to explore different topics, including climate change which interested me. I then decided to pursue a Masters in Meteorology to learn about the science behind climate change so that I could use it going forward into the policy sphere. I didn't think you should make policy about climate change without understanding the science behind it - I'm still a fundamental believer in that.
At the time of finishing three years of my undergraduate degree, I wasn't sure that I could fund a full-time Masters straight afterwards, so my family and I decided that I would do it part-time over two years and work alongside studying. I applied for so many different jobs just to keep the pennies coming in and the job I ended up being offered was with the local Member of Parliament to support him in his constituency office. There I learnt a lot about how policy works on a local and a national level, giving me exposure to the policy sphere. That was something I fell into by chance but it really was a stepping stone along my career path.
During the two years of my MSc degree and in my summer breaks, I also took on other jobs part-time, including at the Environmental Systems Science Centre in Reading, and with Climate Strategies, a climate policy think-tank in Cambridge, where I worked on UNFCCC COP15 preparations for Professor Michael Grubb, the former Chief Economist at the UK Carbon Trust. This role was incredibly exciting and gave me a window into the UNFCCC process and a taste for climate change diplomacy.
When I completed my Masters, I once again applied for multiple opportunities, one of which was an unpaid internship at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) in Geneva - with a role that involved training policymakers on climate change. After two or three interviews, I remember feeling a little shocked that this opportunity came in my direction, and maybe somewhat unprepared for the realities of a three month assignment in Geneva, which in the end, I managed to do partially in London, which made it a little more affordable.
When I took this internship in 2010, climate change wasn't on most governments' agendas, at least not in the way it is now. I was responsible for drafting training on climate change diplomacy to be published online for policymakers around the world to build their knowledge, awareness and skills about the UNFCCC process. It was a strategic opportunity that really arrived at the right time, because it was around the COP15 Conference on climate change which famously didn't go so well. After this Conference, governments were very engaged and determined to get up to speed on climate change and training became a much bigger priority. Hence, the role evolved from an internship into a consultancy, and then eventually into a full time staff position at UNITAR.
UNITAR has been a huge part of your career journey, how did your role evolve during your time there?
From making the climate change course available online, UNITAR began receiving lots of requests from governments to deliver this course face-to-face. So a small team and I started travelling to different capitals across the world, delivering training workshops and simulation exercises and really integrating climate change into the way Ministries of Environment and officials across government were working. As the demand increased I took on the supervision of a team, with the vision that the UN had a responsibility to ensure that information was available to delegations and they had the tools they needed to make progress effectively when negotiating under the UNFCCC.
There were a lot of challenges because climate change didn't naturally fit into one box, whether at UNITAR, in the context of the United Nations system, or even within a government context in terms of who we were trying to train. It was also interesting to see how climate change was perceived and understood differently from different country perspectives and I had to make sure that as I grew in the role I was understanding climate change in a flexible manner, so to speak, because what I understood and my perspective was not necessarily how climate change was understood across the world. But fundamentally the science always remained the same, so having this scientific background was undeniably very helpful in terms of moving forward.
All together, you have spent almost 10 years at UNITAR - what has been your most memorable moment, and what was your biggest challenge?
Attending the UNFCCC COP16 Conference in Cancun was one moment in my career that stands out as being extremely impressive because it was such a huge conference, in a beautiful location and with delegations from all over the world. I was leading a project to support the COP Presidency so I was there for a few days in advance of the Conference starting. We worked with the COP President and the UNFCCC Secretariat and I had a key role in the discussions on the challenges facing the President in building consensus between Parties. Being involved in these conversations still stands out in my mind as a really exciting ‘pinch me’ moment in my career. I was in my early twenties, and working hard every day on something I enjoyed and believed in, and I suddenly realised how through my efforts, I had arrived with others from across the world to play a role in shaping the future of international climate policy. I was certainly a little awe-struck and it’s a moment I remember clearly for reminding me of the scale and bigger picture of the work I was fortunate enough to be doing.
The biggest challenge has been accepting that you cannot change things overnight. I work on an issue that I really care about and have an emotional investment in, and it sometimes can feel frustrating working in the UN context - any change in the UN system does take time. I have learnt the skill of being ‘proactively patient’ and training myself to work on smaller goals that aim towards a bigger goal, and understanding that I need to take these small steps to make long term change. I personally have found in my career so far, that one of the most powerful things you can do is to listen, to observe and to build relationships so that together, you can make lasting and sustainable change. Governments are constructed in complex ways such that you're unlikely to be able to get everybody on board without taking the time to listen, consult and to understand how to change things effectively. And that really does take time, particularly when working on issues like climate change. You don't have to be the most outspoken, fast moving person in the room to make lasting change that really matters.
After so many years at UNITAR, you decided to venture into the world of finance, working for a hedge fund in London - what inspired this?
I recognise it was quite a brave leap!
As I worked on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at UNITAR, it was becoming increasingly apparent that the private sector had a big role to play. The gap in financing needed to implement the SDGs successfully runs into the trillions, with estimates signalling a shortfall in global spending of around 3.3 to 4.5 trillion US dollars if the SDGs are to be achieved by 2030. That kind of money will not only come from governments, it also needs to come from the private sector, where a lot of these assets are invested, and in order to get these flows moving, we need to change a lot of attitudes, practices and behaviours.
Knowing this, and knowing also that I'd spent a significant amount of time within the UN system, I wanted to see if I could gain some experience and understanding, and learn from being in the private sector. I appreciated that this move would test my ability to adapt, as the private sector is really a very different world to work in professionally and personally, but I wanted to do it and it felt like the right time, so I was determined. Lots of people stay in the public sector all their lives, and that's the same to be said of various sectors - it's the way careers have been perceived a lot in the past. I was determined to try something new and build a path that was a little more adventurous.
When I made this transition to the hedge fund, I felt stripped of all the experience that I’d built at the UN, and I definitely felt I was going in at the bottom of the class. I was lucky once again to work for someone who had an open mind to the different skill-set I was bringing and offered me the opportunity to learn. I worked at a hedge fund in London for around a year, in the Group CEO’s office. I was responsible for handling the day-to-day management of the CEO’s office as well as working on a new Economic, Social and Governance (ESG) investment policy, and Diversity and Inclusion across the business. We made a lot of progress on both, particularly in the ESG field where we became a signatory to the UN Principles for Responsible Investment and recently to the Climate Action 100+ initiative. I was so proud of these initiatives because it showed that the finance industry can engage with some of the SDG priorities and related issues that I was used to working on within the United Nations system.
Unfortunately the CEO left the hedge fund and I therefore chose to make a career pivot back to the UN system, but this time with a different mindset. I fundamentally believe that the UN needs to work more closely with the private sector, and the private sector with the public sector, hence I have found myself working a lot more on private sector partnerships. For me, this really drove home the point that a career path is not always linear - sometimes things don’t go as you might expect, but this can lead to new opportunities in themselves.
How have you grown your network and how has it been instrumental to your career?
My network is hard to define because I would simply say that the network I have is my friends and people with whom I have worked over the 10+ years of my career span. I think that to build these friendships within a work context you need to bring an openness of self, in order to let these relationships evolve. At the beginning of my career I thought that you had to turn up to work and put on your best suit and face of makeup and act in a certain way. And over time, my opinion is somewhat different. Now I think that if you bring your honest self to work you're likely to connect with those who you work with and therefore make that lasting sustainable change that we were talking about before - you can't just do it alone you need to do with others, and hence you get strong team relationships, as well as strong friendships going forward.
I’m a firm believer in the power of these networks and through working on Women’s Leadership Programmes, I’ve realised that building networks is an issue that particularly comes up in women's careers. In the context of the UN, I have tried to create ‘communities of practice’, mentorship hubs or buddy schemes to support networking, because for some people it might not come as naturally as it does to others. We really need to champion setting up these networks as systems of support and unity.
Privilege (the sum of unconscious advantages that we did not earn) is the elephant in the room when you hear success stories in the field of International Affairs, and its impact is something that is often not acknowledged when giving career advice. What has been your experience with privilege and in what ways has it helped your career or created challenges for you?
There's a lot to unpack there. Privilege and timing will definitely play major roles in any career path but particularly in International Affairs which is a field where often there are family connections or other forms of privilege that provide easier access for some people.
I certainly have experienced privilege in many ways in my career. I was lucky enough to receive a good education in the UK and to go to the University of Oxford, which I appreciate has opened doors for me. Doing my Masters part-time straight after my University degree, gave me work experience opportunities that I otherwise wouldn't have had and that meant that I was in a good place to apply to the UN internship. I was also lucky that timing was right - as we discussed, expertise in climate science was suddenly in demand soon after I graduated. I was able to accept an unpaid internship for a couple of months in Geneva which once again is a privileged position to be in. I am also aware of my race and what being white and female may mean in specific contexts. At the UN I have cherished and felt privileged to work in a diverse, international and multicultural environment, and have been lucky to appreciate opportunities to travel and work in different contexts which has increased my sense of self-awareness and identity vis-a-vis others.
One area of privilege that I’ve constantly been reminded of throughout my career is gender. International Affairs is a very male-dominated environment, although it is changing over time. I've experienced that being the only woman in a room can happen in Europe, just as much as it can in other regions. This has been a big driver towards setting up the Women's Leadership Programme at UNITAR, which aims to support women in pursuing careers in international affairs and diplomacy.
You’re in the midst of beginning a new role at the World Health Organization, can you tell us more about that?
The role will coordinate a new Technical Advisory Group on COVID-19 mortality assessment, jointly convened by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Department for Economic and Social Affairs. I’ll be working from the Assistant Director General's Office within WHO’s Data, Analytics and Delivery for Impact team. It’s a very timely field and once again, timing is absolutely key in this career transition. It's an extremely exciting opportunity to work in a field I am passionate about, engaging scientists to bring in crucial knowledge, as well as diversity of thought, to the global governance and policy arena.
How do you think COVID-19 will impact the field of International Affairs in the long term?
There's a lot of change that will be on the horizon for the UN system and working in diplomacy and International Affairs. In addition to obvious changes, like increased virtual diplomacy, we will also have to build our knowledge on how to develop trust between States whilst being physically distanced. These new challenges, as well as the existing ones like the COVID-19 and climate crisis, will continue to create new opportunities. Our traditional view of who works in International Affairs is also changing. Previously we associated people with economics or political backgrounds with the field, but now it’s becoming increasingly apparent that science is at the heart of policymaking and is imperative to solving global challenges, including the current pandemic. If you’re aiming for a career in International Affairs, my advice is that you should read widely, think broadly and interact with as many people and disciplines as possible. Understanding the important intersections across disciplines and sectors will be crucial to the future of global policymaking.
