UN’s Joyce Msuya credits parents with life-changing advice on choice of school subjects

There is a pivotal point in one’s life when a decision is made that changes one’s trajectory.

For Joyce Msuya, the turning point was when her parents advised her to take science subjects in secondary school.

"I thought I would be a doctor; one of my brothers is, but I realised I didn’t like seeing blood,” she recalls.

It’s that scientific foundation that has set Joyce’s trailblazing career in international institutions, from the World Bank to her current role in the United Nations as Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator. She has broken many glass ceilings.

She is the epitome of the possibility of what investing in a girl’s education can achieve.

Joyce, a fitness enthusiast and nutrition-conscious, grew up in Tanzania at a time when it was traditionally the norm for parents to prioritise the boy child’s education while the girl was left with household chores.

Joyce’s parents were staunch believers in educating all children, regardless of their gender.

“I never understood why there was a five-year age gap between me and my late brother. I later found out our mother had gone for further studies.

It just shows how much education was valued in our family,” Joyce remembers.

Joyce says her late mother was and is her role model.

“During all our lives, she was always working and still being a mother, cooking us chapatis and teaching me how to cook pilau,” she fondly recalls.

In all her life, she attended public schools.

She joined one of the most sought-after public secondary schools, Weruweru in Moshi, a school with notable alumni like former Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dr Asha Rose Migiro, and many other prominent Tanzanian women.

Joyce attests to the fact that Weruweru gave her the foundation she needed, under the auspices of headmistress Maria Kamm, popularly known as Mama Kamm.

“All the girls at Weruweru were aspiring to be the best that we could be globally. Mama Kamm made us believe it was possible to compete in Cambridge, Oxford, or the US; she made us believe in ourselves,” she remembers.

Mama Kamm’s foresight came true. In 1989, Joyce joined the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, and obtained a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biochemistry and Immunology.

She would later cross over to Canada to do her Masters of Science Degree in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Ottawa.

“In my microbiology studies, I really wanted to do research on HIV/Aids that was ravaging Africa. I saw it affecting people and I wanted to help,” she said.

Joyce did a two-year research-based master’s programme and studied cytomegalovirus, an opportunistic infection in HIV/Aids.

She had an opportunity to study for a PhD at the University of Ottawa, but she sought more life outside the laboratory and wanted to work in public health.

“I was young in my late 20s, and I felt I could make a difference in the world and touch people’s lives through policy and public health,” she said.

She relocated to Vancouver without knowing anyone there or having any relatives and landed a job as a researcher at the University of British Columbia under the late Ivan Head, who had been an influential foreign policy adviser to former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

Her research was on how transportation can aid the spread of communicable diseases, at the time when the focus was on tuberculosis. 

In 1997, after she presented her research paper to an audience, a representative from the World Bank approached her and asked her if she thought of working for the organization. Subsequently, she went to Washington, DC for an interview.

In January of 1998, a new chapter of her career started as an employee at the renowned World Bank.

She worked at the World Bank for 20 years, 13 of which she worked in Washington, before moving to Bank’s offices in China for three years and then going to open the first World Bank Group office in South Korea.

Even with the insurmountable duties around the world, Joyce had time to get married. In 1998, she started a family, becoming the mother of two children.

“I am married to the most amazing and supportive husband. I don’t think I would be as successful as I am without him,” she said. “And he is also a well-accomplished Tanzanian with a PhD,’’ she chimed in.

After Joyce turned 50 years old in 2018 and had a reflective moment, she decided to take early retirement from the World Bank, but not before enrolling in an exchange programme that had her take a post in Nairobi for a three and a half-year stint at the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep).

It was her daughter who advised her to try new challenges in her career paths, and in 2021 she applied for a job that she is currently serving as Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator in the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, a position she officially commenced in February 2022 in New York.

Joyce Msuya is not only the first African to hold that title, but she is also the first person from ‘the Global South’ that represents developing countries to have that position at the United Nations.

Her job entails going and serving in conflict zones, just as in 2022, at the peak of Syrian unrest, she travelled all over the country by road. She also visited Yemen, Burkina Faso, and the DRC.

She also recently visited Somalia, which has had decades of internal conflicts.

“My job is in high-risk places; right now, what keeps me awake is that we have a team in Gaza, Ukraine, and Afghanistan,” Joyce explains.

“Any crisis in the world falls under my responsibility,” she adds. 26 years of marriage and a strong bond with her husband have been pillars of strength as she keeps soaring to higher heights in her career.

“My husband has been the strongest rock,” she says.

“He has stepped up and helped me with raising our children whenever duty called,” she remembers.

When Joyce travelled to Somalia, the husband, like any partner, spent sleepless nights worrying for her safety, but he was reassured that proper measures were taken to observe the safety of all UN staff.

Joyce has come a long way from lining up for bread and toothpaste in the late 70s and early 80s in Tanzania during the Ujamaa era to becoming the highest-ranking Tanzanian in the UN offices in New York.

“Despite growing up at a time when Tanzania was facing economic challenges—and I didn’t go to private schools—to reach where I am based on merit and not a political appointee, I really feel absolutely honoured to represent my country,” she mentions.