Photo courtesy of Emanuella Fernandes Dougherty
Emanuella (Manu) Fernandes Dougherty is a Senior Learning Officer at the Global Environment Facility. In a GEF Voices interview, she shared life lessons from her work connecting people and ideas in support of better-informed outcomes, and offered career guidance to young people with an interest in helping the environment: stay curious, keep learning, and remember to collaborate, as no individual has all the answers.
What do you do for a living?
I work at the Global Environment Facility as a Senior Learning Officer. My job is really about helping people learn from each other and putting knowledge into practice. Essentially, I help turn expertise into something people can actually use. I work closely with technical experts and help them share what they know in more accessible and practical ways.
At the GEF, I focus on creating learning experiences that help turn knowledge into action. This includes designing online courses, workshops, training materials, and publications that support countries, partners, and practitioners working on environmental and development challenges. What motivates me most is using knowledge to connect with people, inspire collaboration, and support real, lasting change.
Outside of work, I’m drawn to creative outlets. I love cooking and often take cooking classes when I travel, it’s one of my favorite ways to understand a culture. I also enjoy journaling and spending time with my family. In different ways, those activities also feel connected to what I value most: learning, creativity, and connection.
How did you get into this line of work?
I started my career as a journalist in Brazil. When I moved to the United States and began working with international organizations, I continued along a communications path, helping raise awareness and understanding about projects, ideas, and results.
Over time, something shifted. As I worked more closely with technical experts, I began to see a gap between knowledge and action. We were sharing information, but not always in ways that helped people really learn from it or apply it in practice. That’s when I became more interested in learning and knowledge – not just communicating outcomes, but helping shape how expertise is received and acted upon.
Over the years, working with organizations like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and Inter-American Development Bank, focusing largely on environmental and social issues, I gradually moved toward designing learning experiences and knowledge products. I brought my communications background with me, but also built new skills in learning, knowledge management, and project design. That journey shaped the work I do today.
Is there a GEF-funded initiative that is close to your heart?
There are many GEF-supported initiatives I admire, but one that is especially close to my heart is the West Africa Coastal Areas Program managed by the World Bank.
I started working with this program more than 10 years ago, when it was still at a very early stage and focused mainly on technical assistance. At that time, it was a shared vision among coastal countries — including Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Mauritania, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, and Togo — and partners to address erosion, flooding, and climate risks in a region where many communities depend on the ocean for their livelihoods.
Over time, the program grew into a larger regional investment, supported by hundreds of millions of dollars in financing, including a GEF grant of about $20 million that helped catalyze additional support from other partners. Seeing that evolution, from early technical support to real impact on the ground, has been incredibly meaningful and special to me.
What life lessons has your job taught you?
My job has reinforced something I learned very early in life. I come from a humble background in Brazil, and my parents, especially my father, always told me that knowledge is the one thing no one can take away from you, and the one thing you can always share.
For me, knowledge was a way to change my reality. Through learning, I was able to open doors, work at an international level, learn new languages, and build the life and career I have today. That experience deeply shapes how I see my work.
It has taught me that access to knowledge can be truly transformative. When people have the opportunity to learn as well as to share what they know, it can create change at many levels – personal, professional, and collective. Being able to support that process through my work is something I find very powerful and meaningful.
The state of the global environment is concerning. What gives you hope?
What gives me hope is people. Through my work, I see every day how committed individuals and communities are to finding solutions, often in very challenging circumstances. I see countries learning from each other, practitioners sharing what works and what doesn’t, and people genuinely trying to do better.
I’m also encouraged by the growing recognition that no one has all the answers. More and more, progress comes from collaboration, listening, and learning together. When knowledge is shared openly and experiences are exchanged honestly, it creates space for better decisions and more durable solutions.
Even in difficult times, the willingness of people to learn, adapt, and work together reminds me that change is possible, and that gives me real hope.
What advice would you give a young person interested in a career like yours?
Stay curious and be open to learning, even when the path is not clear at first. I did not start out knowing where my career would take me. Early on, I worked on coastal and wildlife projects supported by the Global Environment Facility without ever imagining that one day I would be working for the GEF itself.
One important lesson is that your skills are transferable. I never expected that a career in journalism would later lead me into knowledge and learning. Over time, I learned how to adapt those skills, build new ones, and apply them in different ways. Your background is not a limitation, it is a foundation.
Finally, be patient with yourself. Working on global challenges takes time, collaboration, and humility. If you care about learning, about people, and about making a positive impact, there is space for you to grow into this work.
Photos courtesy of Emanuella Fernandes Dougherty
