Rensie dedicates achievements to late Mum

By HANNAH NERO
RENSIE Panda, who has visited other countries when she was awarded The Hubert H Humphrey Fellowship Programme, and now is a manager at the National Energy Authority, never forgets her late mother.
“My biggest role model was my late mother, a Grade Six drop-out, and a hard working disabled woman who raised four boys and one girl in the village. She gave me all her love, attention and care, (although) the love for money and material things was not one of them.”
Rensie, 38, is the only girl in a family of five born to Rewi Panda and Lydia Joel from East New Britain and Wabag in Enga.
Her work today involves coordinating the energy sector’s international contributions to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the International Renewable Energy Agency, the International Solar Alliance and Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation.
“I applied for The Hubert H Humphrey Fellowship Programme in 2013 while being involved in the drafting of the new climate change accord which later became the adopted Paris Agreement 2015, while employed by the Office of Climate Change and Development.

“ Never use your opportunities to influence how you view others around you. Just be simple, humble and disciplined. Intelligence will take you miles, but character takes you miles further.”

“The Paris Agreement would precede the Kyoto Protocol 1997, which is the only legal instrument under the 1992 Climate Change Convention. Work started in Durban, South Africa in 2011 where I began my engagement.
“For the new climate change accord to be successful, the United States needed to be involved as they were not a member of the Kyoto Protocol.
“Between 2011 and 2013 it was extremely difficult for me as an individual to understand why countries such as the USA had difficulties reaching consensus in every drafting process, making our job very difficult. It was important to understand this, plus the need to work with other countries to achieve a proper consensus because the United States plays an important role in the Indo-Pacific region, and their engagement means stronger bilateral and multilateral support for PNG and the Pacific. The US needed to be in the agreement.”
So Rensie applied for The Hubert H Humphrey Fellowship Programme “because I needed to spend some time in the US to understand its government systems, economy, society, and the things that drive their global involvement including support they give to developing countries like PNG”.
She was the youngest of the 2014-2015 group awarded the Fellowship. She secured a placement at the Davis Campus, University of California, and attended drafting sessions in Germany and in Peru.
“PNG is a member of the Alliance of Small Islands States, and to garner support for a successful climate change accord beyond 2015, countries need to start understanding each other. I was able to gather support from most Pacific and Caribbean colleagues on the NDC concept affirming the realities of the situation in the US.”
She graduated in June 2015, five months prior to the final adoption of the new climate change accord in Paris, and returned home “in the middle of the new PNG climate change act drafting”.
“So it was easier for me to constructively contribute to the process.”
Rensie thanks The Hubert H Humphrey Fellowship Programme for “improving my foreign policy outlook on sustainable development issues and challenges, and what it would take for PNG to have a strong partnership with the US and other industrialised nations”.
Now enjoying the view from the top, she has never forgotten how she was brought up.
Her advice to people, especially women, is “you will have many role models starting with your immediate family members – your mum, dad, grandparents, relatives, people within your community and others outside that circle.
“When you want to do something that inspires you, you need to be disciplined, humble and focused.
“Discipline starts at home – respect your elders, parents, partner and those around you. This attitude will sharpen you in life. And never use your opportunities to influence how you view others around you. Just be simple, humble and disciplined. Intelligence will take you miles, but character takes you miles further.”