In 2024, I was assigned by the Ghana National Service Authority (NSA) to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Ghana Country Office in Accra to undertake the mandatory one-year National Service Programme for the 2024/2025 service year. The process began with an unexpected requirement: an interview — my first-ever professional one. I had never heard of anyone being interviewed for a National Service position, so I was understandably filled with apprehension. During the session, I composed myself and channeled my initial fear into delivering focused and concise responses, which ultimately secured my placement.

The two-week waiting period for the confirmation call was filled with nerve-wracking anticipation. As a recent graduate in Forest Resources Technology with a major in Social Forestry at the time, I was passionate about applying my knowledge to real-world development challenges. My goal was to join a team that worked on projects rooted in community engagement and sustainable natural resource management, and UNDP seemed the ideal place to do so. Therefore, in the moment when my posting status on the NSA online portal changed to "accepted", it was an absolutely exhilarating feeling.

Over the past 11 months at UNDP, I have been treated as a professional rather than the conventional narrative of National Service Personnel (NSP) being used purely as errand-runners. On my first day of reporting, I was assigned to the Environment and Climate Cluster, where the Team Lead paired me with a supervisor who provided continuous guidance and to whom I remained accountable throughout my service period. Like all substantive staff members, I was required to establish professional goals and targets for the year. These were closely monitored to ensure progress and to provide the necessary support for my career growth. My daily tasks were directly aligned with achieving these goals.

As a fresh graduate with little professional experience, I felt empowered to be entrusted with significant responsibilities. This quickly enhanced my workplace confidence. My role involved providing programmatic, financial, administrative, and logistics support — including drafting minutes for office-wide Programme and Operations meetings, organizing workshops and Project Steering Committee meetings, conducting desk research, and collecting data for various projects across climate action, green economy, and circular economy.

Sustained Development Requires Whole-of-Society and Sector-Wide Approaches

One of the most transformative experiences during my service was joining the planetGOLD Ghana team on a field visit. This offered me a fresh perspective on development work and deeper insights into the daily livelihood challenges faced by rural communities. Before this mission, my understanding of development was largely theoretical — shaped by reports and videos. The field visit to mining sites in the Western and Ashanti regions revealed that development is not just about executing projects; it involves grappling with complex, often conflicting realities, compounded by poor infrastructure, public safety risks from vast open mining pits, and the difficulty of shifting deeply entrenched practices.

Engaging with local stakeholders and observing their efforts to meet daily needs shifted my approach from a purely technical view to one that embraces nuance. I now understand the essence of stakeholder engagement in pursuing sustainable development goals and have adopted a more holistic lens that recognizes sustainable change as an inherently human challenge.