Carney cycled through several United Nations positions during the 1990s, serving from 1992 to 1993 as the Director of Information and Education of the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia, in 1993 as the Special Political Adviser to the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in Somalia, and in 1994 in the UN Observer Mission in South Africa as it prepared for the historic post-Apartheid transition to democracy in 1994. In 1994, Carney was appointed as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs. A year later, he would receive his first ambassadorial posting.