An Interview with Abdal Monium Osman (MAHA '00)

FAO Office of Emergency and Resilience, Rome, Italy

In this short Q&A, Abdal Monium Osman talks about the many hats he has worn and the many responsibilities he has shouldered during his years working to bring relief to those in crisis situations.

Please tell us about the work you are currently doing.
I’m currently working as a Senior Emergency and Rehabilitation Officer for the FAO Office of Emergency and Resilience in Rome, Italy. Prior to the work in Rome, I worked as the Head of Programme for FAO in South Sudan. Following my graduation from the MAHA program, I continued in the same area of concentration where I earned my Ph.D. at Tufts, and worked for the Feinstein International Center as a Senior Researcher.

My current work as a Senior Emergency and Rehabilitation Officer involves programmatic support to the different countries experiencing humanitarian crises. I just came back from a five-month mission to North Nigeria, and before that, I was in Mozambique for almost six months. I’m currently getting ready to travel to Syria.

As part of my current work, I’m also leading a project where FAO is collaborating with FIC, exploring the drivers and addressing child acute malnutrition in Africa’s drylands. This has been a persistent problem, with prevalence rates of Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) remaining stubbornly high, frequently exceeding the WHO emergency threshold of 15%. At the same time, I’m a co-lead of one of FAO priority areas of work: “Better Nutrition for the Most Vulnerable.”

How did your experience at Fletcher prepare you for this work?
The MAHA was an amazing program that came into existence for me at the right time. The end of the Cold War brought tremendous political, social, and economic changes which, combined with climate changes, have had serious implications at global, regional, and local levels. This has required a new way of thinking about humanitarian work – programs, norms, and laws – to prepare humanitarian workers for new challenges that they, and the world, would be facing.

It has shaped my thinking and that of other colleagues to develop an understanding of the emerging bigger picture, and it provided me with the tools and skills to explore further. It has also enabled each of us to dig deep in our area of specific interest. For example, with my livestock background, at that time I was very interested in developing my expertise in conflicts, food security, and livelihoods, with a special focus on the agricultural dimension of violence in situations of protracted crises.

How do you recognize World Humanitarian Day?
Three issues usually shape the way I recognize and acknowledge World Humanitarian Day. First, World Humanitarian Day always reminds me of the 22 humanitarian aid workers who were killed on 19 August 2003 in the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, Iraq, including the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello. It is a day to recognize the great work and the life-threating challenges that the humanitarian aid workers face on a daily basis and the sacrifices they make.

Second, it reminds me of the millions of civilians and victims that are caught in these humanitarian crises. They are deliberately subjected to hunger, violence, and suffering as weapons of war in the different parts of the world.

Third, it reminds me of the political, social, and economic interests of the different groups, individuals, and perpetrators that drive and benefit from the suffering of human beings, particularly those caught in situations of humanitarian crisis.