Humanitarian Finances

On the week when the United Nations celebrate the World Humanitarian Day, a date that reminds us of the dedication of men and women who work to build a better and fairer world, the WFP Centre of Excellence against Hunger honors Carmelúcia Mello, finance and admin officer of the World Food Programme in Brazil. Carmelúcia has been working in the United Nations System for 18 years. She graduated in economy and has a specialization in international business. She has worked for UNICEF, UNDP, and UN Environment, and for the past four years has been running the Centre of Excellence. However, it is not only her academic background and work experience that make Carmelucia a humanitarian worker. Her life story, her ability to seek the solution to problems within herself, and her commitment to changing the life of her family and spreading this transformation into the lives of many families around the world are a source of inspiration for all her colleagues. Contribution “I enjoy working at the WFP Centre of Excellence because we work to build long-lasting solutions. The South-South cooperation work is innovative, even within the UN System.” Besides that, fighting hunger has a special appeal to Carmelúcia due to the life story of her family. “My grandparents had 20 children, and four of them died. My mom was in charge of serving the dishes and sharing the food among all the siblings, making sure that no one was left behind.”

“The kind of work that I do, in the operational arena, is usually invisible, but I believe that UN resources only reach their development goals if they are strictly controlled. By doing my job well, I make sure the resources are used in the best way possible. The well-done management and finance work attracts more people and resources to increase the impact of fieldwork.\” Commitment Carmelúcia’s life story explains her commitment to humanitarian work and social development. \”I was never hungry because everything my family had at home was divided among my parents, the six children and who else needed it. But I am the daughter of a construction master who came to Brasília from Piauí [a poor state in the Northeast of Brazil] on the back of a truck with three children and his seven-month pregnant wife, so life was not easy,\” says Carmelúcia. \”I have always studied in public schools and benefited from school meals. Our money was very limited, but I took every opportunity to take courses in school: sewing, embroidery, anything.\” The taste for education was learned from her mother: \”I have a lot to thank my parents for, but my mother always had a great concern with keeping us studying, and to see her commitment to keep us in school showed me how important it is to study. I see the positive effect this had on my generation and even more on the generation of my nephews and my three children.\” Job At age 16 she got her first job at a private bank. \”I never liked to complain about the problems, I always tried to look within myself and ask what I could do to change the situation,\” says Carmelúcia. She worked in the private sector for a few years, and in 1999 saw an advertisement in the newspaper with a vacancy for an international body. \”I was interested because the requirements were related to the financial, statistical area.\” The vacancy was for UNICEF, and it was Carmelucia\’s first job in the UN System.

The first contact with the UN was so important for Carmelucia that she never forgot the date of the first job interview: November 2, 1999. She spent four years working in Unicef, followed by another four years in UNDP. In 2008, she left UNDP to take over the admin and finance unit of the UN Environment, which at the time was called UNEP. After four intense years, which included the organization of Rio+20, Carmelúcia left the United Nations to accompany her family to the United States. \”When I was preparing to get back to Brazil in 2013, I was willing to look at other perspectives, but I could no longer see anything that interested me outside the UN System.\” The vacancy at the WFP Centre of Excellence was announced one day after her return to Brazil. \”I was sure it was for me!\”, Carmelucia jokes. \”I saw no other place, even in the government, where the work had such a reach, where the actions had a positive effect that reverberated so far. Within the UN, any work you do, even at the local level, has positive effects around the world.\” It was in search of this kind of professional fulfilment that Carmelúcia returned to the UN System. \”I believe that working is not only a means of ensuring my own survival, but a tool to help others.\” World Humanitarian Day Remembered on 19 August, the World Humanitarian Day was established in 2008 by the UN General Assembly in memory of the 22 people killed in a terrorist attack at the UN facilities in Baghdad, Iraq. At the time, in 2003, the Brazilian diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello lost his life. This year, the theme for the date is #NotATarget, to remind us all of the attacks against civilians that happen every day in the many armed conflicts around the world.