UN Special MEETS Dr. SARAH COOK
THE NEW HEAD OF UNRISD

The United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) is based at the Palais des Nations and comprises approximately thirty Geneva-based staff and a global research network of around two hundred academics. Created in 1963, this autonomous agency carries out research into the social dimensions of contemporary development issues, and its work feeds directly into that of other UN entities, academia and policy makers alike.

Recently, the Secretary-General appointed Dr. Sarah Cook as the new Director of UNRISD and she is due to take up her post on 1 November 2009. Dr. Cook, who joins UNRISD from the UK based Institute of Development Studies, is a development economist and China specialist whose recent work has included research on social protection in Asia, social welfare in rural China, the informalization of employment and the gender impacts of economic reform. She is the first British national to take the helm at UNRISD, has a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University, speaks English and Chinese fluently, and has a working knowledge of French and Spanish.

Starting a new job in an unfamiliar land has its obstacles, but UN Special were fortunate enough to speak with Dr. Cook and find out about the path that led her to UNRISD and discover what plans she has for the agency during her tenure.

You have joined UNRISD from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex. Tell us about your previous roles and why the move to UNRISD was a logical step for you.
I joined IDS straight after completing my PhD, early in 1996, but since then I have also spent five years (2000-2005) working for the Ford Foundation in China. At IDS I have been involved in a range of research, teaching and advisory work. My own research has focused broadly on the social impacts of China’s economic reforms, including issues related to poverty reduction, labour markets and social welfare. Most recently, as China becomes more prominent on the global stage, I have started to work more on what China’s rise means for development and how the international community and scholars can engage with Chinese counterparts both to learn from China’s experience and to share this internationally.

Over the past few years I have also been the Director of a multi-country research and networking programme on Social Protection in Asia (www.socialprotectionasia.org), funded by the Ford Foundation and IDRC, with partners throughout south and south east Asia and China. The programme aims to create a regional research platform and advocacy base to promote innovative and informed policies and practices that overcome barriers to the extension of social protection to poor and marginalized people.

Much of this work clearly resonates with the content and approach of work undertaken at UNRISD. I have a huge respect for the research done at UNRISD, and have had some opportunities to work with colleagues in the past particularly on social policy and gender issues. Of course, it may be easy to look back and see this move as a logical step, but I think there is always an element of serendipity – being in the right place at the right time; having received encouragement from particular people at certain moments.

Trace back your interest in development issues for us. Where did this all start for you?
This is always a hard question to answer as I’m sure I rewrite my own history constantly. My childhood did involve frequent moves overseas, and I think the interest in travel and the wider world was always there. China was an interest from a young age – perhaps influenced by early years in Singapore and Malaysia: that’s always hard to say, but I believe this was a determining influence. Of course there are key people who have influenced me along the way – from more distant role models to closer relatives and friends, teachers and colleagues. But I think my real understanding of ‘development’ issues came from my early years in China, in the mid-1980s. I lived in a relatively small town, and taught students who were mostly from rural areas and would go back to the countryside to teach. It was a time of significant change – the beginning of ‘free markets’ when farmers could bring goods to the towns to sell, gradually rising incomes and increasing mobility. But the China of the early 21st century was still beyond our imagination. I knew I wanted to understand what I was experiencing better – and so returned to the UK and then the US as a student of development studies and economics. But my work was always rooted in my experience in China. Being witness to this process of change – of history being made at an unprecedented speed – enables a vision of what is possible, of what ‘development’ can achieve. Of course China still faces many problems; and it is not an easy step to draw lessons from its remarkable experience for other countries; but I think it makes it easier to imagine the seemingly impossible.

The current phase of the Institute’s research agenda is winding up at the end of 2009. What new objectives and themes do you have in mind for the next phase, from 2010 to 2014?
We obviously need to define our agenda on social development in relation to key global events and a changing context. Once the immediate shocks of the recent crises have passed, many people throughout the world will continue to live with the longer term impacts. The conference UNRISD is holding in November, on the social and political dimensions of the crisis, will be a good moment for reflection in our efforts to define where this agenda should move, including the kind of social policies that are needed to increase both national and individual resilience and responsiveness to future crisis.

A second critical contemporary issue is of course the way in which climate change will affect the livelihoods and developmental possibilities of the poor. We at least need to consider whether and how UNRISD can contribute to a deepening of our understanding of the social development dimensions of climate change, and help shape UN and policy responses.

Given the autonomous status of UNRISD, the organization does not receive money from the UN general budget and must secure funding through other sources. In light of the global economic crisis and the general down-trend of donation money, what will you say to donors in order to convince them to support the Institute?
This is obviously a major challenge facing UNRISD, together with many other institutions in the development field. For UNRISD a priority has to be to diversify sources of funding, and try to build a wider base of support including from emerging donor countries and the philanthropic sector. We need to generate clear messages from our existing work and show how it has generated impact. And we need to have a focused research strategy, and excellent proposals on specific topics with relevance to contemporary development problems. Donors of course have different interests and priorities, and messages need to be differentiated. I believe that many of the long standing funders of UNRISD believe in the value of the work we do. For new donors, we will have to demonstrate the relevance of our work to their development programme priorities.

For many bilateral donors, there is however a wider issue of ‘aid-fatigue’ and a sense that aid is not working, exacerbated currently by the problems of growing budget deficits and domestic demands for resources. Thus the international development community, including organizations such as UNRISD, will be under greater pressure to provide clear messages to the wider constituency of taxpayers about the positive effects of aid, the achievements and progress towards MDGs (even if we ultimately fall short), of the lessons that we can draw from both the failures and successes, and clear steps for the future. We need to ensure that the basic issues of child survival and maternal health, adequate nutrition, access to water, health and education, which are denied to millions of people, remain visible and urgent priorities among those of us who can take these things for granted.