How a diplomatic rock star works

Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi's diplomatic charm offensive is exactly what Pakistan needs today

Ambassador Lodhi is one of the most powerful Pakistani women on the international stage today. After serving as Pakistan’s ambassador to the US and high commissioner to the UK in previous assignments, she’s currently serving as Pakistan’s ambassador and permanent representative to the UN in New York City. Despite all the trappings of power and influence, she remains remarkably humble and self-effacing in her sense of humour. When I ask her how she ended up as Pakistan’s top diplomat to the UN, she argues that it was a series of accidents, chance and good luck. “When Benazir first asked me to serve Pakistan as a diplomat,” Ambassador Lodhi shares, “I pushed back by saying I had no prior experience in diplomacy. Benazir responded teasingly by arguing she didn’t have prior experience in being prime minister either.”

In her office on the Upper East Side in Manhattan, one sees a striking similarity across the portraits of all of Pakistan’s previous representatives to the UN — all men. I ask her whether being a woman makes her job more challenging or easier. “It makes it easier at the international stage but more challenging, at times, in a domestic context,” she shares. “When I started out, it felt like a woman is presumed to be incompetent until she proves otherwise. I had to work harder than the men. I had to sound more intelligent. I had to appear as a superwoman in front of friends and family. In fact, if I have one regret now and could go back in time,” she confides, without me asking directly, “I would have managed my work-life balance better. I would have spent more time with family.”

One of the signature achievements of Ambassador Lodhi is the role she played in lobbying the American government to remove some of its sanctions on Pakistan (injustice had been done to my country, she argues). Next, I ask her how she manages to keep such good relations across the political spectrum in Pakistan, while also appearing to enjoy the trust of the military establishment. “You’re positioning that as a very provocative question,” she shoots back. “If you’re a good professional, people recognise you as such,” she shares. “I’ve never been partisan and always sought to be a national representative. I always seek to build consensus.” I thought this was a clever diplomatic dodge. Until I saw her in action the next day at the UN.

That day, Pakistan had taken the initiative to call a meeting at the UN to highlight the plight of refugees around the world. The room was packed with representatives from powerful nations like the US, the UK as well as nations most afflicted by the refugee crisis, including Afghanistan, Palestine and many others. There was barely standing room space — not normal for a side meeting like this called by a member state — and Ambassador Lodhi was working the room like a diplomatic rock star. “When the Afghan refugee crisis started, my country didn’t erect any walls or deploy any gun boats,” she said with her characteristic poise, while taking a diplomatic dig at powerful states in the room doing exactly that. “My country responded with generosity. Today, over 42,000 people are fleeing their homes every day. Half the world’s refugees are children. For example, the journeys of escape for thousands of Rohingya Muslims are turning into a journey of death … The international community isn’t acting decisively enough. The UN is not without blame.”

One by one, countries and UN agencies thanked Pakistan and Ambassador Lodhi for bringing this issue to the forefront and starting a conversation to design creative solutions. In a room full of the brightest diplomatic minds in the world, Ambassador Lodhi was arguably the best speaker, with the possible exception of the UK’s representative to the UN. Towards the end of the meeting, Ambassador Lodhi pulled a diplomatic rabbit out of her hat by introducing a Columbia University academic, who reframed the problem entirely by arguing that instead of viewing the refugee crisis as a moral or humanitarian issue, it should be linked to the economic and security interests of taxpayers in donor countries. “There are two benefits of being the only academic in this room,” he argued. “The first is that I don’t have to wear a tie. And the second is that I can speak my mind.” By the end of the meeting, I realised that Ambassador Lodhi isn’t apologetic when she tries to project a soft image of Pakistan. Instead, her diplomatic charm offensive is exactly what Pakistan needs today.

Extraordinary Pakistanis seeks to find and share inspirational stories about everyday Pakistani heroes (if you know someone who should be profiled, send us a Tweet @Mbilallakhani). If we don’t share these stories about Pakistan, no one else will.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 17^th,  2015.

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