In this episode, United Nations Senior Policy Advisor Manav Sachdeva talks with students from the UC Riverside School of Public Policy about his insights from his decorated career in international policy and how he works to help countries navigate from conflict to stability.
Podcast Highlights:
“The more you get knowledge of places on the ground, [and] the more you [hear] the stories about them, [you learn that they don't] have control over their own narrative... they have a whole set of issues that have not been listened to."
- Manav Sachdeva on the importance of giving people space to tell their own stories, especially in the Global South.
“There are layers of suffering and we need to... listen. So the main thing I find in transition [from conflict to stability] is the mistakes we make when we don't listen…there is a cost to not listen in this line of work.”
- Manav Sachdeva on the importance of listening when helping regions transition out of conflict.
“We did a project and we dug a well where we didn't even check if the ground levels were good enough—people do silly things out of hubris. So, check yourself a little bit because if you do it with humility you will have such a happy life.”
- Manav Sachdeva on the importance of humility in international development work.
Guest:
Manav Sachdeva (United Nations Senior Policy Advisor)
Interviewers:
Rachel Strausman (UCR Public Policy Major, Dean’s Vice Chief Ambassador)
Dinara Godage (UCR Public Policy Major, Brand Ambassador)
This is a production of the UCR School of Public Policy: https://spp.ucr.edu/
Subscribe to this podcast so you don’t miss an episode.
Learn more about the series and other episodes via https://spp.ucr.edu/podcast.