IFAD's staff awards programme is inspired by Daniel Pink’s paradigm. Pink argues that “the secret to high performance and satisfaction is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world”.
He defines these three elements as follows:
- autonomy, the desire to direct our own lives
- mastery, the desire to continually improve at something that matters
- purpose, the desire to do things in service of something larger than ourselves.
IFAD staff award programme recognizes the achievements and accomplishments of colleagues who as individual or as teams ― have made outstanding contributions as:
- Leaders
- Designers and implementers of an innovative and/or outstanding initiative
- Agents and facilitator of change
What is special and what makes this awards programme different from others is the fact that the nominations come from STAFF. Colleagues nominate colleagues and reward their actions and behaviours because they have done something special.
This year we celebrated the accomplishments of 22 colleagues.
The celebrations started with paying tribute to a cross-departmental team award composed of Tomas Rosada, Natalia Toschi, Rajiv Sondhi, Purificacion Tola Satue, Deirdre McGrenra, Sandra Reyes, Mirka Ferrise and David Hartcher who were involved in a long and difficult negotiation process that culminated in the approval of the debt settlement agreement for the Republic of Cuba.
You should have seen the expression on the face of our lovely ICT colleague, Fabio Mariano, when they called his name... he was in a state of shock and could not believe that they called his name. Fabio received the staff award for his work in advancing ICT's workstation management services which has drastically reduced the time needed to configure and deploy workstations at IFAD.
Silvana Scalzo, was recognized for her initiative of developing "cooperation brief" drawing on a number of databases.
Numerous colleagues were recognized as agents and facilitators of change and they are:
This year we celebrated the accomplishments of 22 colleagues.
The celebrations started with paying tribute to a cross-departmental team award composed of Tomas Rosada, Natalia Toschi, Rajiv Sondhi, Purificacion Tola Satue, Deirdre McGrenra, Sandra Reyes, Mirka Ferrise and David Hartcher who were involved in a long and difficult negotiation process that culminated in the approval of the debt settlement agreement for the Republic of Cuba.
You should have seen the expression on the face of our lovely ICT colleague, Fabio Mariano, when they called his name... he was in a state of shock and could not believe that they called his name. Fabio received the staff award for his work in advancing ICT's workstation management services which has drastically reduced the time needed to configure and deploy workstations at IFAD.
Silvana Scalzo, was recognized for her initiative of developing "cooperation brief" drawing on a number of databases.
Numerous colleagues were recognized as agents and facilitators of change and they are:
- Clare Bishop-Sambrook, our gender technical adviser for her commitment and dedication to gender-related issues and for steering the IFAD gender policy.
- Maria Turco, for having conceived and implemented an innovative security awareness training which benefited not only IFAD staff but expanded to the rest of the UN family.
- Thu Hoai Nguyen, our programme assistant in Viet Nam country office for spearheading the decentralization of financial functions from HQ to the country office and implementing the financial management and disbursement pilot project system.
- Rasha Omar, one of the most dedicated and commitment staff of IFAD, a mentor and role model for many, for the way she managed challenging country portfolio, such as Sudan and now DRC Congo.
- Federica Cerulli Irelli, a solution finder, a wonderful young lady with great sense of humour, the very Federica who broke the mold and did one of the most innovative blogposts of our collection, for helping us become more efficient and effective in using and mobilizing funds.
- Edward Gallagher, our budget man, someone who everyone wants as friend, for his role in bringing about major changes and improvements in our budgetary processes.
- And finally in this category, a team of resourceful and creative ladies who came up with a number of suggestions to make current business processes more efficient: Adriana Bombardone, Aisha Nazario, Francesca Tarabella and Tina Frezza
We finished the staff awards by paying tribute to the leadership of Paula Kim, for her role in leading and galvanizing the country office support unit. Paula, with her smooth, soft, elegant and diplomatic manner worked across department and divisions to put in place a robust support system for IFAD country offices.
Last but not least, my own colleague, Bob Baber, the man behind the communications toolkit, who played an instrumental role in coordinating the preparation and production of the toolkit. He definitely made it happen and I must say, we take pride of this gem - a resource which provides practical communication tips and one that is valued by our colleagues in the field and our sister organizations.
Congratulations to each and every one of you. Happy holidays... And since it looks like the world will not be coming to an end today, check out this space next year for the 2013 staff award edition.
Wishing you all a peaceful and prosperous 2013.