Margunn Indreboe
Margunn joined Norec as the Director of Programmes in 2022 after 15 years with UNDP where she most recently held the post of Deputy Resident Representative to Botswana. Her work has focused on programme management, partnerships and innovation in often conflict-affected and crisis contexts such as Lebanon and Sudan. Margunn holds Master degrees from the London School of Economics and University of Oxford in Global Politics, Development Studies and Anthropology.
What we learnt
Margunn Indreboe Alshaikh emphasized the crucial role of local communities in development initiatives. She highlighted the importance of engaging communities from the design stage, through implementation and creating feedback loops to ensure that the community's needs and voices are heard and addressed. She discussed the role of governments and the UN in negotiating impact investment parameters and setting global standards for all actors to agree upon. She mentioned Norec's efforts in facilitating knowledge exchange through global partnerships and UNDP’s work to create integrated national financing frameworks and SDG investor maps to mobilize actors. However, scaling impactful projects can be a challenge as successful projects in one community may not necessarily work in another. Thus, scaling up requires careful consideration and adaptation to local contexts.
Margunn further shared insights into the UNDP Lebanon Host Community Support Project, which prioritized communities hosting Syrian refugees in Lebanon based on a national vulnerability map. She noted that political agendas must not override the needs of the communities and highlighted the importance of ensuring intentional diversity management when selecting communities and evaluating projects. Additionally, foresight tools can align different actors and create a shared vision for the future. In conclusion, Margunn highlighted the importance of collaboration between different actors, including governments, NGOs, and the private sector, in achieving development goals. She also emphasized the need to ensure that the community's needs are heard and addressed, and that projects are evaluated based on their potential positive impacts on the community.
Key quotes
‘You have to work at different levels. These projects are great at the community level, but you also need political processes and negotiations at the national government and international levels. Lebanon, in particular, is a country where national decisions are not made within the country. They are made in France, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Syria, and Russia. So, you have all these strings being pulled in different ways.’
‘The government would often end up being the owners, or rather custodians, of local initiatives such as community parks, football fields, or community halls. However, the local governments would end up being the custodians who run, maintain, and manage these initiatives. The local government has a strong ownership role in this process, as it ensures sustainability.’
‘Almost any foresight tool is still new to many political leaders. I find that exciting. They're caught off guard, which means they don't come in with a set agenda or a strategy to manipulate the tools. I think any type of foresight tool has been very helpful in that sense. It lowers the barriers to have honest conversations across parties and current differences.’