This year, we mark IVD by recognizing the power of collective action: if everyone did.
My real exposure to international development through volunteering
My name is Titta Maja-Luoto, from Finland. I am a former UN Volunteer, now in a senior policy role with the Government of Finland. I am presently the Director General of the Department for Policy Development in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. My career in international development started many years ago, and being a UN Volunteer has been a big part of it.
I always wanted to work in the UN system but didn't have the experience. So after completing my graduate degree in social sciences, I started working with a Finnish non-governmental organization as a gender focal point. My university degree in gender and the new gender role seemed like a match made in heaven.
A few years into that, I came across an opportunity as a UN Volunteer. It was for a pioneering strategic gender mainstreaming programme. I recall we were a group of 12 volunteers supporting the UN Development Programme's (UNDP) regional gender advisors.