Careers in Development: Interview with Joy Phumaphi

June 1, 2007—Joy Phumaphi is Vice President of Human Development at the World Bank. She is a former World Health Organization (WHO) Assistant Director General for family and community health, and was health minister in her home country of Botswana from 1999–2003. Youthink! spoke with Joy about her career in development.

Youthink!: Was there a specific moment when you decided to dedicate your life to international development?

Joy Phumaphi: I don't know whether there was a specific moment, but it became very obvious to me as I grew older that it wasn't possible to improve human development only within a country's territorial borders when we all live in a global village. You have to understand the global and developmental context to address the local context effectively. That implies you need at some stage in your professional life work within the international development arena as a development worker to become an effective development worker overall.

Youthink!: And is there a particular sector of human development that you are particularly interested in?

Joy Phumaphi: I'm really interested in the ability of people to attain self-actualization. There are certain windows of opportunity that need to be opened at various stages during a person's life to attain it. I see my most effective role as addressing these windows, such as the window of opportunity which is created in linking the job market to training, whether it is formal or informal, or the need to assist young people who are either school dropouts or who are unemployed because they were improperly prepared for the job market. I prefer to play a catalytic role rather than to limit myself to any particular section within human development.

Youthink!: What attracted you to a career in international development?

Joy Phumaphi: I come from a lower middle income developing country [Botswana] where we have reached a stalemate in terms of finding ways to diversify the economy. Global markets now are just so complex and the challenges so diverse that any developing country that wants to compete effectively needs to understand global markets well. This is what really motivated me to go outside Botswana and to work in the development arena, with the intention of going back to Botswana or going back to my sub-region to see whether I can use what I have learned to support them all.

Youthink!: Any advice for how young people can prepare for a career in international development?

Joy Phumaphi: The young people of the world are the most challenged population cohort—47% of the unemployed globally are young people. They carry the greatest burden of disease, with over 6,000 young people infected with the HIV virus every day. Yet, young people are the most innovative. They have the most strength. They are the most visionary and they have the greatest potential to build capacity than any other population cohort. I would say to any young person that this is your future, take it. This is your world, shape it in the mold that you want. Nothing is impossible. But at the same time I would also like to appeal to those of us who are in a position to craft strategy, legislation, and programs to ensure that those programs, strategies, and legislation actually respond to this energy that young people are offering to the global community. Only when we do that can we attain the Bank's core mission of poverty reduction and achieve our vision of a healthy, prosperous, diverse, integrated, well-developed global family.

Youthink!: What does your job involve on a day-to-day basis?

Joy Phumaphi: In the human development network, I work with colleagues who are responsible for education, health, social protection, youth and development, diversity and ethics. We see ourselves as the core of the Bank's work because we are focus on the basic unit of social, economic, and political interaction—the human being. There is no development program that can occur without human capital, and we see our role as informing the development process throughout the Bank. So we see ourselves as the glue that brings together all the development work that the bank does. And puts the human being at the center of development. On a day to day basis I work with my colleagues to ensure that this vision is realized, not for ourselves in the network but for everybody in the bank and most importantly for our clients at the country level.

^ top