Alumni in the Spotlight | James St John Cox

Can you provide an overview of your career journey so far? 

My career journey has been unorthodox, to say the least. I think that both my teachers and fellow classmates from THGS would remember me as very focused on drama, and initially, after graduating in 1999 I followed fellow alumni Joel Edgerton and enrolled at Theatre Nepean. However, I left before graduating to study a master in Media Arts & Production at UTS. This saw me walk across the street in Ultimo on graduation to begin working in News and Current Affairs at the ABC in 2007. Over the next three years, I worked my way up in the newsroom, seeking to eventually become a foreign correspondent. However, impatience got the better of me, after a short assignment to a fledgling radio station in the Maldives introduced me to the world of international development work.  

In 2009 I applied to the Australian Youth Ambassador for Development program to be a television journalism trainer at the School for Broadcast Media in Jakarta, Indonesia. This one-year volunteer assignment was to be only a temporary sabbatical from the ABC for me to gain more overseas experience in foreign affairs, but a chance encounter with the head of the United Nations humanitarian program in Indonesia changed the course of my life forever. I had previously never even heard of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and my only real knowledge of humanitarian aid was what I had seen on the news of the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004. I became a United Nations Volunteer (UNV) firstly in Jakarta, then in Khartoum, Sudan and later in the regional office for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok, Thailand. I then moved to a full professional contract in Afghanistan in 2013 and the Philippines in 2014.  

In late 2014, during the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, I made the move from aid worker to government donor when I joined the UK Department for International Development (DFID) in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Normally, donor governments provide the funding but do not get directly involved in hands-on aid implementation, but this changed with the Ebola response as the UK directly established field hospitals with NHS doctors, serviced by UK military officers. As I am a dual Australian-British citizen I was able to work directly for the UK government and help fill the gap in field expertise they had during the response.  

Since then, I have flipped between further DFID roles in Ethiopia and Iraq (2016) Yemen (2017) Bangladesh (2018) and Sudan (2019). I have also worked for other UN agencies such as the World Health Organisation in Turkey (2016), and the World Food Programme in the Philippines (2022). 

What inspired you to pursue a career as a Humanitarian Coordinator? 

The opportunity to help people in need, to feel like I could make even a small difference in a time of crisis, was my initial motivation. From the beginning I was something of an idealist, believing I could change the world and all that, and truth be told, those are the best ideals to go in with. The work is tough, the conditions often harsh and the hours very, very long. The life tests us all, so having a belief to both motivate and ground you is very important. Apart from that, there was of course the added bonus of getting to see the world, to travel to places I otherwise could only dream of seeing: the Hindu Kush Mountain range in Afghanistan, the point where the Nile river splits in two in the Sudan, it's not hard to get inspired when you work in places like these. 

What is one highlight from your time working with the United Nations? 

The opportunity to live and work in Afghanistan is, sadly, a once-in-a-lifetime. It is easily the most stunningly beautiful place I have ever been to, the mountains, valleys, and deserts plains like no other. It is also an almost hopeless situation, with some of the worst humanitarian conditions that I have ever encountered. The isolation, both geographically and politically, is in one part inspiring and in equal parts demoralising. But I do not regret my time there for one second. I was both fortunate and privileged to have served the people of Afghanistan as best I could. 

What is your current role with the United Nations? 

Over the last decade I have focused on standby roster roles, meaning I can be called upon at any moment to deploy for 3-6 months to any given humanitarian context or role. This is why I have had the privilege to work in many different countries and for many different agencies. My most recent deployment was to Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh, where I was the Humanitarian Coordinator for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) thanks to funding from the Australia Assists program. My role focused on coordinating our overall humanitarian response to the Rohingya Refugee Crisis, where more than one million people have been housed in the world's largest refugee camp on the border with Myanmar. This was my second time in Bangladesh for this crisis, and five years later, the humanitarian needs are greater than ever. 

This focus on many short deployments rather than long-term roles is not for everyone, as it does not provide the stability and routine that many crave from working life. It is also difficult to be away from my wife for long periods, and difficult for her to know that I am mostly in dangerous places when I do it. 

What are your future aspirations? 

For years I have focused on general humanitarian coordination and funding, but I am now moving into a specialised area: civil-military coordination during emergencies. The vast majority of humanitarian responses involve either local or international military forces, be it Australia sending an aircraft carrier full of supplies to our neighbours in the Pacific, or a nation like Indonesia sending its own military as first responders to one of its many islands. Either way, the paths of humanitarian and military actors almost always cross, and that requires specialised logistical coordination and liaison. In the future, that will probably be me leading from the humanitarian side on the ground, but in the downtime, I will also be doing some teaching to both sides to improve everyone's understanding of our individual roles, responsibilities and shared goals. 

 What advice can you give to our Hills Originals? 

If you would like to pursue a career with the United Nations or in humanitarian work in general, the first thing to do would be to decide if you want to do so as a specialist or a generalist. if, for example, you dream of working with Doctors Without Borders, then the first thing you will need is a medical degree, and some practical experience. Otherwise you can study at one of 26 universities in Australia that offer many excellent courses in international development and humanitarian studies. I did a graduate certificate in international development with Deakin University by correspondence while working overseas, to supplement my communications degree. 

Next, after gaining relevant work experience in Australia in your field: volunteer overseas. The UNV program has literally thousands of overseas roles on offer, and these provide a gateway to a career with the UN, just like mine. But you can start with smaller organisations and charities. I personally recommend the Australian Volunteer Program, which is the current iteration of my first volunteer assignment in Indonesia back in 2009.