| De: |
laurel |
| Sujet: |
Experiences as a young female working on ICT in the UN
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| Envoyé: |
Nov 25th, 2003 - 08:11:02 |
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Hello all,
By way of a brief introduction, my name is Laurel
Gascho and I worked for three years leading internet
development for my office in Paris within the United
Nations Environment Programme. Our division consisted
of three outposted office (Osaka, Geneva, and Paris),
and I worked with men in the other two offices to
improve the quality of the division's ICT
communication (the goal was essentially to encourage
and teach the staff to use ICT to bring their
environmental solutions to the target audience of
industry and policy makers).
I have joined this discussion rather late, at the
request of one participant to share my experiences as
a young woman working as an ICT leader within the UN
system. Although this is very different than the
more grassroots and substantive topics that seem to
have been discussed here, it may provide some insight
into encouraging young women into these positions
within a large international development organization.
I have not had the opportunity to read through the
discussion to this point, so I apologize if I repeat
the comments of others and I do hope it will be of
some interest.
I did not feel I experienced significant difficulties
as a young woman at UNEP - it was my experience that
as long as I worked hard, exhibited a solid
understanding of what I spoke of and expressed a
sincere desire to learn about the areas I was weak in,
my male ICT colleagues at the UN were always more than
open and willing to work with me as an equal. Where I
experienced difficulty was with upper management,
where the occassional man would have extreme
difficulty accepting my decisions and initiatives. I
attributed that partly to my being a young blonde
female in a leadership role. But probably it was more
strongly attributable to the fact that the
introduction of ICT and new methods of communication
causes all kinds of changes to the control of
information within the organization, ultimately
flattening the hierarchy and shifting power
structures. That was quite threatening for some
staff, especially to those managers that were
unfamiliar with ICT.
In my experience, mentors were critical to my success.
I was fortunate to have four women within UNEP that
helped me with the political and organizational issues
while I relied heavily on two men in other UNEP
offices and a female colleague from outside UNEP to
support me on the technical aspects. Diverse mentors
are so important. More formal mentor programs that
specifically target young women implemented within
large organizations like the UN may be very beneficial
in increasing their ICT leadership role.
However, it is actually extremely difficult to enter
the UN system without years of experience (I was
fortunate to enter through a special program of the
Canadian government for recent graduates). Young
girls need to be encouraged at a much earlier stage to
take an interest in and pursue a career in ICT and for
that I defer to your previous discussions. My only
suggestion is that it is important that young women
are taught not to see their gender as a barrier.
There will always be barriers to professional success
in an environment like the UN system. The critical
aspect is to instill the confidence in young women to
find creative ways around barriers, to find solutions
and continue to push for changes within these
bureaucratic organizations. Being politely restrained
and soft-spoken, as I feel young girls are so often
encouraged to be, may be one of the biggest barriers
to success as an ICT leader.
Hope this was of some interest. I look forward to
hearing from the other.
laurel
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