20 reflections from my first 20 years

May 5 marked my 20th work anniversary. So much happened since that day in the Spring of 2002! While they won’t give justice to the past couple of professional decades, let me offer 20 quick and informal reflections on the travel so far, and hazard a few predictions.

In the order they come to mind…

  1. My career coincides with the rise of social protection in low & middle income countries (no causality here!). Such growth will continue, alongside a rediscovery of social protection in high income countries. If pondering your study and/or career path, this is a promising one!

 

  1. An implicit framing that often animates our debates is how L&MICs may follow post-WW2 Scandinavian welfare states. While inspiring, countries will find their own paths and soon the trend will be bidirectional: EU et al may also receive, absorb and adapt unique lessons from L&MICs.

 

  1. I got to social protection via my food security and famine studies. That ignited interest in rural economies, urbanization and labor markets — that is, structural transformation. Social protection and such transformation process are surprisingly separated and should interact much more.

 

  1. We are on a journey of discovery. If we remain true to a spirit of genuine and passionate inquiry, the world can open up surprising doors of new knowledge. But new knowledge reminds us how little we know. Curiosity expands the boundaries of our universe, complacency shrinks them.

 

  1. Practice is the premier source of learning. No amount of reading would replace knowledge acquired from direct “doing” — or being part of the process fraught with real-world choices and compromises, and being accountable for them. The world is messy and we should embrace it as is.

 

  1. While development is a long term endeavor, our hearts need to be animated by the “fierce urgency of now”. And all countries are develop*ing*, they are just at (very) different points of an evolving process. Can anyone claim to have solved all problems?

 

  1. Some of my most formative experiences entailed learning under pressure. Whether producing a flagship in 3 months or setting up a cash program in a flood-hit area in weeks, how you grow and what you learn in high stakes situations is special. Professionally and bonding with others.

 

  1. Echo chambers. Too often we talk among ourselves and likeminded audiences. We should do better at engaging and understanding others with different opinions and perspectives. Getting out of our comfort zone may help illuminate our own biases and create the space to reimagine the future.

 

  1. We do lots of analytical work, but how much do we *think*? To what extent do we critically re-examine our past steps vs frantically charting next ones? Sometimes we need to pause and reflect, not trouble shoot and react continuously. And this comes from someone that never pauses.

 

  1. Once I visited an IDP camp in Darfur that would be attacked by rebel groups. Just before hell breaks loose, I photographed a voucher beneficiary, a mother full of grace. I pray she survived that day, and I am deeply grateful to all frontline humanitarian workers in the world.

 

  1. I am lucky to have been part of, and hopefully contributed to, institutional change. While at WFP, I helped pilot and steer the agency toward an architecture allowing the use of cash transfers. And at the WBG, social protection is at an all-time peak. Feel blessed and proud of both.

 

  1. I had the privilege of learning from some wonderful mentors from around the world — Belgium, US, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Mozambique, Russia, Armenia, India, Poland. Their voices will be with me forever and set an impossibly high standard for my own mentoring of new generations.

 

  1. The opportunity to do something you strongly believe in will come. But it won’t happen under ideal conditions. Be ready to recognize and seize it. You’ll have to quickly adapt and learn how to play. You’ll find it more difficult than anticipated and more rewarding by the end of it.

 

  1. Write it up! So much of our individual and collective experience gets lost. Every organization suffers from gaps in institutional memory. Take the time to document your thinking, it will come handy for you and others. Papers have a strange life, no writing ever goes wasted.

 

  1. Pay tribute to and tap an incredibly precious and underrated source of knowledge and wisdom: your retired colleagues. They have been there. They are able to see what you can’t. They have the right distance from the issues. They will be candid, savvy, measured and help you improve.

 

  1. It is legitimate to raise and advance an issue — poverty, children, workers, etc. Yet we should be aware of the toll this may take on governments as they weigh options for their pressing problems. We need to create a symphony across approaches, not a compilation of rock bands.

 

  1. Many ask how I do my weekly links. Simple: I take time during the week (outside office hours) to read and synthesize new papers. It takes 6h/week and good coffee (and discipline) can help. I relish it and glad they reach many people (10k+). They started in 2016 and will continue for long!

 

  1. Evidence is not enough. If it were, the world would be more predictable. To be influential, we need to better comprehend what forms and affects people’s worldviews. Where they come from, what shaped their thinking. It doesn’t start with convincing, but with true listening.

 

  1. It’s not rocket science, some say. Solutions are known and it’s “just” matter of will. Besides the huge debate on solutions, the problem is that will is contextual, non-uniform, and subject to change. Social policy *is* more complex than rocket science.

 

  1. My role models are smart and dedicated, but don’t take themselves too seriously. They are kind, humble, unassuming and brave enough to change their mind. People will remember what you did in your career, but more so how you did it — how you treated others and who you are as a person.

 

Hope some of these resonate with you!