Category: IR in Practice

TEASER: You can find the full-length interview with Nina Bernarding published in our second issue.   YJEA: We would like to start our interview by talking about your studies. How did you become interested in the topics and what motivated you to start your studies? Nina Bernarding: For my bachelor’s, I studied History and Political Science in Heidelberg, and I did my master’s degree in Conflict, Security and Development at King’s College London. Before my studies, I had already been interested in international affairs in a broad sense. When I […]

YJEA: Hello Dr Baumgarten, it’s very nice to have you! I would like to introduce you shortly to our readers before going right into the interview: You have worked for the GIZ, the German development agency, for quite some years now. Your focus has been on health issues in Africa, where you directed the GIZ Office to the African Union until earlier this year. Now you serve as Director of the Office in Togo. Baumgarten: Thank you very much for the honour of this interview! This is a great opportunity […]

YJEA: We would like to start with your academic background. Could you give a short introduction of yourself? Idriss: Yeah, I will, because I am not the typical person who would end up in the public sector. So, about my international background: My name is Lanna Idriss, I am 45 years old and my father comes from Syria, my mother is a German-Danish mixture and I identify myself as a third-culture-kid. This is an expression by an American professor, who said, that when you have two different cultures in your […]

YJEA: Please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your job. Leonie van der Stijl: My name is Leonie van der Stijl and I’m a Dutch diplomat. I currently work at the directorate for Inclusive Green Growth (IGG) in the climate diplomacy team. The directorate houses a team of about 80 people. We cover food security, water, energy, arctic policies, and climate change. The climate team does two main things: on the one hand, we work on development programs, for example, a lot with the GIZ on renewable energy […]

This is the first contribution to the IR in Practice section of the blog. This category is designed to provide students of IR with insights about possible career paths in IR outside of academia. This time, we interviewed Pauline Ngongang about her NGO and her work in peacebuilding and conflict management.   YJEA: Please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your job? Pauline Ngongang: My name is Pauline and I was born in Cameroon, in the western region. I grew up in the southwest region, where I pursued […]