Interview - Meet Yurdakul Yigitgüden
Dr. Halil Yurdakul Yigitgüden from Turkey has been the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities since 1 February 2013. He spoke with Security Community editor Ursula Froese.
You studied mining engineering in Aachen, Germany. How did this influence your future career?
I had just begun studying in Ankara when I received a scholarship from a state-run mining company to study in Germany. Aachen was one of the few places you could study mining engineering, so I decided to study there. The programme was very interesting. One of the things I appreciated most is that it was quite generalist – we had a lot of courses also in law, economics and business management. I stayed on for PhD studies and worked as an instructor for six years. I liked this combination of scientific and administrative work, and it was very useful for me later on.
What did you do when you returned to Turkey?
For three years I worked as a project engineer for Etibank, the company that had given me the scholarship. Then I was asked to go to the State Planning Organization to promote investment in the mining and energy sectors, also to look at the tools other countries were using. I had the chance to travel to Japan, to study their regional development policies and visit their less developed regions, like Shimane, Tottori and the island Hokaido in the north, and to see what incentives they were applying to develop these regions.
I enjoyed this work very much. I saw – and this of course is still relevant for our work today – that if we want to pursue development goals, these goals must always coincide with those of the people. Otherwise, we will never be able to achieve a real democracy or good governance.
If people are hungry, they will not have much understanding for questions of global ethics.
I returned to Etibank in 1987 as Vice President. I was of course proud to serve the company that had financed my studies at this high executive level.
A new area of responsibility opened up for me when the Transport and Communications Minister invited me to be his Deputy Undersecretary in 1991. For four years I worked in the area of infrastructure and civil aviation, in the Ministry and as Chairperson of the State Airport and Air Traffic Authority as Chairperson.
In 1995, I was quite happy to join the private sector. I went to Istanbul to lead a conglomerate company, Fenis Holding, which works in aluminum extrusion, textiles and construction – again something new. All my life, I have been given opportunities to learn new things – and this is continuing today at the OSCE!
From 1997 to 2003 I served as Under-Secretary at the Energy and Natural Resources Ministry; then worked as a consultant on various projects, mainly for international companies wanting to work in the region, before focusing for three years on a European Union project on energy efficiency and renewable energy in the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (MEDA) countries. I travelled to all ten MEDA countries, helping them to adjust their legislation to make it more environmentally friendly.
What did you achieve as Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources?
My aim was, first of all, to restructure the Turkish energy sector.
I truly believe in the strength of private sector investment as a way to achieve much faster results and better serve the community
When I assumed the post, our gas and electricity market was controlled 100 per cent by the government. Now it is 45 per cent owned by the private sector. I am very pleased that the market structure has changed and that we can expect to see more competition in the future.
Secondly, I wanted to help achieve Turkey’s aim of developing stronger connections to the countries in the South Caucasus and Central Asia. It was a very interesting task. Turkey has been offering scholarships and economic aid to these countries since the early 1990s. I helped them connect with world markets, to market their energy resources, so that these resources could be used to increase the wealth and prosperity of their nations.
I was criticized because of the costliness of these projects, but I was thinking of the long-term benefit to my country. And indeed, many of these countries have become more prosperous and are engaging in more trade and are investing the money they have made from the sales of their hydrocarbon resources, also in Turkey.
What are your hopes for your work at the OSCE?
I am looking forward to learning from the OSCE’s work and in particular the work my office is doing. I don’t believe in magic and I don’t believe that as an executive you can change the direction of your ship overnight and immediately sail to new waters. First you have to conclude work that has already started and build on that.
I am thrilled about the interconnections I see being made between security and economic development and environmental issues.
Take for example our current work in the field of critical energy infrastructure protection: if the infrastructure is destroyed somewhere, this can also impact the environment, which in turn can have a negative influence on the wellbeing of the people living in the surrounding area. I do not know of any other organization that brings all of these issues together as does the OSCE.
Is there a particular area you would like to explore?
I see economic development as crucial. If we can achieve more progress, then it will be much easier to move forward on issues of good governance, combating corruption, fighting trafficking and so on. We need to do more to help the participating States boost their economies and distribute this wealth more evenly to their citizens. I think this is essential. We may not have as many tools in our hands as, say, the international economic organizations, but we can co-operate with them to achieve this goal. Then, when we conduct our workshops on good governance, they will understand what this really means and will be able to follow up on our work. It will make our task much easier.