For Manus McCaffery MA ’18, an associate political affairs officer with the UN, the ability to build relationships is the key to developing lasting solutions to complex issues in communities around the globe.
Global Connections
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Diplomacy requires showing up in person.
For many, including Manus McCaffery MA ’18, this truism still holds despite the technological advances that have made our world more interconnected than ever.
As an associate political affairs officer with the United Nations’ Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Western Africa Division and the lead desk officer for Ghana and Cabo Verde, McCaffery’s work takes him to remote communities in West Africa. He’s learned there’s no substitute for the knowledge gleaned from face-to-face engagement with stakeholders in the communities he serves.
“In my work, when looking at big-ticket solutions to the issues I handle, it helps to have as many different inputs as you can from many different experiences and putting yourself out there,” he says. “That ultimately helps you better relate to the issues that someone on the ground faces, make a connection, and find the right solution.”
“What I’ve learned is that if you do what I do, which is travel to meet with people and understand their perspectives, you begin to see major issues from a whole new point of view.”
McCaffery’s portfolio of responsibilities is broad, covering issues that include gender, women, youth, peace, and security, with a focus on the rapidly developing region of West Africa. His work requires reporting and analysis of issues that range from terrorism to drug trafficking, meeting with members of permanent UN missions as well as the White House and State Department.
“The core of what we do is protect peace and prevent violence,” he says.
To that end, McCaffery supports initiatives that introduce innovative technology like satellite data to track environmental and conflict issues, such as water and crop levels and population migration. This real-world data, he says, helps inform peacekeepers on the ground and create productive dialogue within the political spheres of the countries in the region he covers. McCaffery says the UN has also incorporated AI tools to help track mis- and dis-information on social media platforms.
Preventing conflict, he says, “requires years and years of interfacing with different stakeholders: parliament, opposition, journalists, NGOs. Long-term engagement promotes peace.”
'Different gears in the same clock'
From a young age, McCaffery says he had a curiosity about the world and wanted to travel. He was born in the culturally diverse city of New Orleans, speaking fluent French. He often traveled to Ecuador as a child, where his family owns a farm and he has dual citizenship. While in high school, Hurricane Katrina destroyed his family home and forced them to move into a hotel in Texas. Not able to find a school nearby, McCaffery finished high school in Philadelphia, living with a host family.
Living through one of the worst natural disasters in American history had a profound effect on McCaffery. “New Orleans is such an amazing and special place and, even though it has maintained its culture, the city and the region was fundamentally altered. It introduced me to conversations about development, infrastructure, energy, and the environment, forming the basis for the advocacy work that I wanted to do.”
McCaffery went on to attend Stanford to study international relations and French. After graduating, at the urging of a former professor, he traveled to Mongolia to work in the nuclear energy sector and uranium mining policy for three years.
Wanting to move into fieldwork, McCaffery then took a position as an environmental consultant working with USAID, primarily in the Americas and Africa, including in Haiti, Honduras, Paraguay, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was that work experience, he says, that brought him back to how he felt after the hurricane: realities on the ground are often far different than what is understood at the political level and that many seemingly disparate issues are connected.
“Even though I would go into a community to talk with leaders about environmental issues,” McCaffery says, “the conversation would quickly turn to social issues. I would learn why water scarcity was leading to criminal conflict. I would learn that aid that was given last year ended up having negative impacts on public health. Being on the ground, learning from those who are personally affected, was the most important thing for me.”
Having focused on theory as an undergrad and now armed with practical experience, McCaffery says he sought a way to marry the two in a structured way, which led him to pursue a master’s degree at Yale. He leaned heavily into “building what you want” academically, bolstering his Jackson coursework by taking classes at the School of the Environment and the School of Management, where he notably traded a paperclip for a car as part of a class with SOM professor Zoe Chance.
McCaffery also cites the importance of Jackson’s summer experience. Between his first and second year, he had the opportunity to participate in two internships: the first was a placement in the Ukrainian parliament, reviewing environmental impacts of the Nord Stream pipeline connecting Russia to the European mainland, and the second working with the Wildlife Conservation Society developing strategies for maintaining wildlife corridors in Honduras and Nicaragua.
Once again, facing different issues in far apart landscapes, he found connections in how to interact with people on the ground. “We’re all different gears in the same clock,” he says. “You can always find an overlap that informs solutions to the issues you’re facing.”
McCaffery joined the UN in 2020 and has been in his current role since 2022. He is part of the organization’s Young Professionals Program, which necessitates a rotation every few years.
Naturally, McCaffery has thought about where the work might take him next. He would still like to focus on issues of the environment and energy, though not necessarily in Africa. Geneva, Addis Ababa, Bangkok, and Santiago are all on the table.
But whether it’s the nature of the job or a lifetime of being on move, McCaffery relishes the unexpected.
“It hasn’t been a straight line for me,” McCaffery says. “But every new opportunity, as I see it, is a chance to build upon my skills and find new experiences.”