As a woman, a life for women
“As a woman, the biggest challenge has been working in Saudi Arabia. Until a few years ago, we couldn’t even hold a meeting alone, we needed male colleagues. So I pushed for an all-women team and the Bank supported me.” With a life on the move, traveling between the Middle East, Africa and Asia, Federica Ranghieri is a program leader at the World Bank, responsible for the sustainable development program for Egypt, Yemen, and Djibouti, based in Cairo, where she has her office.
After graduating in economic and social sciences from Bocconi University in 1994, she began her career as a researcher working on environmental issues. She recounts: “I wrote my thesis in collaboration with Eni’s Mattei Foundation on industrial economics, with a focus on sustainable development and environmental accounting. From there I worked at the Foundation in a small team dedicated to climate change. We were very few and the office was a flat in Via Santa Sofia in Milan”. Ranghieri says it was a very interesting experience, in addition to teaching at Bocconi and Statale.
This was followed by a master’s degree in international development at the American University of Washington. And this is where new paths open up. She says: “I have always had a passion for international organisations. After my Masters, I went to the OECD in Paris to present a paper on a project with the Montedison Group on emissions trading, not only between countries but also within different sectors: from chemicals to agriculture. As luck would have it, two people from the World Bank who were interested in developing carbon funds were present at the conference. They asked me to be a consultant,” he explains. From there, after a few years, I applied to the World Bank, which I joined in 2007. That meant packing her bags and taking her four- and six-year-old daughters with her, while their father stayed in Milan. “My husband and I used to say to each other: ‘It’s only two years, I’ll go back and forth to Washington’. But two years became three and then 16. A turning point was when we decided to take the family with us. In recent years, Ranghieri has worked on urban development and disaster risk management (DRM) in the Middle East and North Africa, but has also worked in Afghanistan, on climate resilience projects in Sri Lanka, and led the Learning from Mega Disasters project after the 2011 tsunami in Japan.
In 2022, she will be flying to Cairo to take on the role of programme leader, working on five sectors: agriculture, access to water, urban development, environment and social security. “Not a small problem, especially with the war in Ukraine and the grain shortage. My team and I then work on water management, environment, inclusion and climate change,” he adds. Of his work, Ranghieri says: “I learn every day, there is always a new challenge. I love dealing with clients, which are governments. I talk to ministers and local authorities every day. From Washington, you are part of a mission that ends, whereas as a programme manager you are on the ground, you are the contact person, and especially in the most fragile countries you really see the impact you can have. For example, bringing water to villages lost in the wilderness.
Then, of course, there are the cultural challenges. “In the Gulf countries, despite the difficulties for women to work, we deliberately created female teams. I was never alone, but always with many female colleagues. It was a message the Bank wanted to send”. For young people, Ranghieri advises them to focus on technical competence and, if they are interested in the World Bank, to look at the Young Professional Programme for under-30s.
