[5] She later served with UNICEF, the UN, and as founding Chair of the Ramphal Institute, a London-based not-for-profit organization with a mission to advance knowledge and research in such areas of policy as development, education and environmental issues.
[1][9] She worked briefly as a newspaper journalist in Jamaica before going to the US and attending New York University (where her circle included James Baldwin), graduating with a liberal arts degree.
[4][6] As described by Victoria Brittain in The Guardian, Robertson was "a prominent figure in the historic turning of the tide against Margaret Thatcher's support for apartheid South Africa by the Commonwealth leadership, headed by Sir Shridath (Sonny) Ramphal.
"[1] According to The Times: "Sir Shridath 'Sonny' Ramphal, the Commonwealth's second secretary-general, was the public face of that organisation's long battle against apartheid in South Africa and Britain’s refusal to join it.
Scarcely less important, however, was Patsy Robertson, the Jamaican official behind Sir Sonny, who for nearly three decades used her role as the Commonwealth's spokeswoman to foment international opposition to South Africa's pernicious regime, and to challenge Britain's assertion that it could be reformed, not destroyed.