Page 50 - Bulletin, Vol.82 No.3, December 2023
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teaching advanced level Applied UN. Why did you decide to stay? Was
Mathematics. As I was quickly running it because you believed in the ideas
short of money, a friend at the youth of the Organisation? Or were you
hostel suggested that I go to the UN in hoping to develop your career within
search of a temporary job. I first went to the UN? Is there any career
UNCTAD where the recruiting officer, development within the Organisation
after reading my CV, sent me to the if one starts on a G-post? Is there any
ECE Statistical Division. There I was chance of being recognized by the
interviewed by Mr. Gentile, the assistant Organisation based on your skills
Director. He read my CV and asked me and knowledge?
if I could complete a study that was 5. My work with the UN was supposed
previously undertaken by someone who to be temporary, as I had hoped
had resigned and had moved to WHO. eventually to return to Zimbabwe where
So, I started working the next morning
on a 2-month contract. most of my family resided. After waiting
for 5 years for the end of the racist
3. Being colleagues, we knew you regimes in southern Africa, I had lost
were brilliant and exceptional, but hope and so decided to continue to work
you were always very modest and did for the UN in Geneva instead. I believed
not hold high positions either. What in the UN Organization’s ideas.
was your driving force to work? Was Eventually, I adopted a Swiss baby girl
it respect for the Organisation or and a few years later turned down a P3
simply a stable job?
post in the Middle East. In 1992, when
In mid-February 1975, I received job the UNECE moved from IBM mainframe
offers from UNECE Statistics, GATT, to personal computers, I was given the
and ILO. opportunity to follow any IT courses I
wanted and to train staff. I became the
As I had studied Economic Principles, IT focal point for UNECE STAT.
Economic Statistics, International Trade
and International Organizations for my 6. After retirement, it is a kind of
first degree, but had completely dropped new life, a new opening. Is there
Economics for the next 7 years, while anything you really enjoy doing that
teaching Mathematics, I decided to work you could not do when you were at
for UNECE Statistics as a statistical the UN, being limited by the job
assistant for economists working for the description?
UNECE Economic Analysis Division, so 7. When I was in secondary school my
that I could revise and update what I had favourite subjects were Mathematics
studied in Economics. I was fortunate to and History. So, after retirement, I
be able to work with economists of dropped IT and spent a lot of time
Western and Eastern European
countries and to carry on further studies studying the history of the countries of
origin of my grandparents – south
in Econometrics.
western India, Portugal, and south
4. As I know, you have an excellent eastern Baltic countries.
education and background, and you
can do a lot more than you did at the
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