BORN
1950

INDUCTED
2023

CATEGORY
Community & Social Work

THE HONOURED INDUCTEES TO THE SINGAPORE WOMEN’S HALL OF FAME

JANET LIM YUEN KHENG

Global refugee crises problem-solver
Janet Lim has been caught in the crossfire of warring factions in civil wars, lost in landmine-filled deserts, hitched last-minute rides in military helicopters, and flown into war zones armed with gasmasks.

All in the course of 34 years with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, where she rose to the position of Assistant High Commissioner. The UN agency’s job is to protect and assist individuals and populations forced to flee their home countries as a result of persecution, war, or conflicts, and engaging in complex emergency operations all around the world.

Janet had not, as a young woman, set her sights on a career with the United Nations agency. But she was keen to see the world, and she also felt a need to try to make the world a better place.

When she was in secondary school, Janet went on the American Field Service (AFS) exchange programme and spent a year in California. It was a defining experience for her. She was immersed in the American way of life and interacted with other AFS students from all over the world.

“Meeting these people really opened my eyes to a lot of things, and it made me want to see more of the world,” she said – which is exactly what she did when she joined UNHCR. Her work with refugees took her to a host of countries, including Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Western Sahara, Syria, and Turkey.

When, after her AFS stint and her A levels, Janet enrolled at the then University of Singapore, she decided to study sociology and social work. This was despite her parents’ opposition because of what appeared to be the limited career prospects of those fields of study.

Upon graduation in 1975, she was recruited to the government’s elite Administrative Service and began serving her bursary bond at the Ministry of Finance. But she saved her wages and bought herself out of the bond just 1.5 years later when she won a scholarship to Germany to pursue a master’s degree in development studies at the University of Bielefeld.

She then started work on her PhD and chose to do her field research on women peasants in rural Egypt. This involved, for three months, travelling 90km out of Cairo squeezed in an old boneshaker taxi with up to 20 locals who were hanging out of its windows, the boot, and on the roof.

While in Germany, she was struck by the stream of Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian refugees running away from the Indochina war. Many lost their lives as they desperately tried to flee their war-torn countries. She volunteered to help at a refugee reception centre in Dusseldorf. Using Mandarin, Hokkien and Cantonese, she helped resettle the traumatised, mainly ethnic-Chinese refugees into Germany.

Janet had found her purpose in life.

While still working towards her PhD, she applied in 1980 for a job with the UNHCR and was offered a short-term contract in Geneva. She had planned to spend the three months gathering information for her thesis. But the officer in charge of the agency’s programme in Thailand quit and she was offered the job. Her planned three-month stint stretched into two years and then 34 years.

Janet played a key role in setting up operational partnerships and interagency collaboration within the larger humanitarian community. She was closely associated with the establishment of UNHCR’s emergency response capacity and mechanisms and through its various phases of reform.

In 1996, Janet was seconded to UNAIDS at its inception as a member of the senior team defining and establishing the AIDS Programme. She was responsible for managing its administration within the World Health Organisation and in concert with the other co- sponsoring UN organisations.

In 2003, she was also seconded to UNAMA, the peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan where she supervised and initiated activities relating to capacity building support for government ministries, public administration reform and good governance at the provincial level.

In 2009, she was appointed UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner (Operations), a position she held until her retirement in 2015.

In her 34 years of UNHCR work, Janet says she has always kept one thought in mind – that ultimately “it is the individual that we are helping”. In a 2014 media interview, she said: “There is a tendency to think of refugees as people who would be a burden. This stereotypical image is often reinforced when they are confined to living in refugee camps and forced into a situation of dependency. In fact, when given a chance, refugees would rather be self-sufficient, find their own livelihoods and use the skills they have brought with them.”

Janet is currently an Executive in Residence with the Geneva Center for Security Policy (GCSP) and a Fellow at the School of Social Sciences at the Singapore Management University (SMU).
In recent years, she has been engaged in a wide range of philanthropic projects in Singapore and in the region as administrator of an estate dedicated to charitable organisations.

JANET LIM YUEN KHENG

Global refugee crises problem-solver

BORN 1950
INDUCTED 2023
CATEGORY Community/Social Work

Janet Lim has been caught in the crossfire of warring factions in civil wars, lost in landmine-filled deserts, hitched last-minute rides in military helicopters, and flown into war zones armed with gasmasks.

All in the course of 34 years with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, where she rose to the position of Assistant High Commissioner. The UN agency’s job is to protect and assist individuals and populations forced to flee their home countries as a result of persecution, war, or conflicts, and engaging in complex emergency operations all around the world.

Janet had not, as a young woman, set her sights on a career with the United Nations agency. But she was keen to see the world, and she also felt a need to try to make the world a better place.

When she was in secondary school, Janet went on the American Field Service (AFS) exchange programme and spent a year in California. It was a defining experience for her. She was immersed in the American way of life and interacted with other AFS students from all over the world.

“Meeting these people really opened my eyes to a lot of things, and it made me want to see more of the world,” she said – which is exactly what she did when she joined UNHCR. Her work with refugees took her to a host of countries, including Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Western Sahara, Syria, and Turkey.

When, after her AFS stint and her A levels, Janet enrolled at the then University of Singapore, she decided to study sociology and social work. This was despite her parents’ opposition because of what appeared to be the limited career prospects of those fields of study.

Upon graduation in 1975, she was recruited to the government’s elite Administrative Service and began serving her bursary bond at the Ministry of Finance. But she saved her wages and bought herself out of the bond just 1.5 years later when she won a scholarship to Germany to pursue a master’s degree in development studies at the University of Bielefeld.

She then started work on her PhD and chose to do her field research on women peasants in rural Egypt. This involved, for three months, travelling 90km out of Cairo squeezed in an old boneshaker taxi with up to 20 locals who were hanging out of its windows, the boot, and on the roof.

While in Germany, she was struck by the stream of Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian refugees running away from the Indochina war. Many lost their lives as they desperately tried to flee their war-torn countries. She volunteered to help at a refugee reception centre in Dusseldorf. Using Mandarin, Hokkien and Cantonese, she helped resettle the traumatised, mainly ethnic-Chinese refugees into Germany.

Janet had found her purpose in life.

While still working towards her PhD, she applied in 1980 for a job with the UNHCR and was offered a short-term contract in Geneva. She had planned to spend the three months gathering information for her thesis. But the officer in charge of the agency’s programme in Thailand quit and she was offered the job. Her planned three-month stint stretched into two years and then 34 years.

Janet played a key role in setting up operational partnerships and interagency collaboration within the larger humanitarian community. She was closely associated with the establishment of UNHCR’s emergency response capacity and mechanisms and through its various phases of reform.

In 1996, Janet was seconded to UNAIDS at its inception as a member of the senior team defining and establishing the AIDS Programme. She was responsible for managing its administration within the World Health Organisation and in concert with the other co- sponsoring UN organisations.

In 2003, she was also seconded to UNAMA, the peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan where she supervised and initiated activities relating to capacity building support for government ministries, public administration reform and good governance at the provincial level.

In 2009, she was appointed UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner (Operations), a position she held until her retirement in 2015.

In her 34 years of UNHCR work, Janet says she has always kept one thought in mind – that ultimately “it is the individual that we are helping”. In a 2014 media interview, she said: “There is a tendency to think of refugees as people who would be a burden. This stereotypical image is often reinforced when they are confined to living in refugee camps and forced into a situation of dependency. In fact, when given a chance, refugees would rather be self-sufficient, find their own livelihoods and use the skills they have brought with them.”

Janet is currently an Executive in Residence with the Geneva Center for Security Policy (GCSP) and a Fellow at the School of Social Sciences at the Singapore Management University (SMU).
In recent years, she has been engaged in a wide range of philanthropic projects in Singapore and in the region as administrator of an estate dedicated to charitable organisations.

“I am always glad that whenever I felt I had to do something, I just did it there and then, rather than wait. There are things in life that you will never do once the moment is past.”

“I’ve become more realistic. When I first joined UNHCR, I thought I could help make the world a better place. Obviously, the world is not becoming a better place. But what has always stayed with me is that, even if we’re dealing with a mass situation, it’s ultimately the individual that we are helping. I try never to forget that. Plus one refugee helped helps to prevent one more problem in the future that may be more difficult to fix.”

“There is a tendency to think of refugees as people who would be a burden. This stereotypical image is often reinforced when they are confined to living in refugee camps and forced into a situation of dependency. In fact, when given a chance, refugees would rather be self-sufficient, find their own livelihoods and use the skills they have brought with them.”

Carrying her mission to the end
AsiaOne, MARCH 16, 2014