Background

UNDP

The United Nations Development Programme works in some 170 countries and territories, helping to achieve the eradication of poverty, and the reduction of inequalities and exclusion. We help countries to develop policies, leadership skills, partnering abilities, institutional capabilities and build resilience in order to sustain development results.  Inclusive growth, better services, environmental sustainability, good governance, and security are fundamental to development progress. We offer our expertise in development thinking and practice, and our decades of experience at country level, to support countries to meet their development aspirations and to bring the voices of the world’s peoples into deliberations.

BPPS

UNDP’s Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) has the responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of UNDP’s Strategic Plan.  BPPS’s staff provides technical advice to UNDP Country Offices; advocates for UNDP corporate messages, represents UNDP at multi-stakeholder fora including public-private dialogues, government and civil society dialogues, South-South and Triangular cooperation initiatives, and engages in UN inter-agency coordination in specific thematic areas.  The Governance and Peacebuilding Cluster within BPPS includes a Directorate, as well as the Inclusive Political Processes; Rule of Law, Justice, Security, and Human Rights; Conflict Prevention; and Responsive and Accountable Institutions teams.

Development Impact Group

The Cluster on Development Impact focuses on assisting UNDP and partners to achieve higher quality development results through an integrated approach that links results based management and performance monitoring with more effective and new ways of working.  It seeks to do so by enabling UNDP and others to be more innovative, knowledge and data driven by identifying, testing, learning, sharing and institutionalizing what works, including through effective development cooperation, South-South and Triangular Cooperation and higher quality UNDP programming.  It acts as a hub on all aspects of results based management and development performance monitoring and analysis as well as identifies, collects, and shares ideas on new and better ways of working across the UNDP network, social innovators, and the development community. The Cluster on Development Impact is composed of the following sub-areas:

  • Programme Effectiveness
  • Development Effectiveness

The Development Effectiveness and Programme Effectiveness teams work closely together to understand and deepen UNDP’s and the international community’s understanding of what works and what does not work in effecting development change at country level in UNDP’s Strategic Plan programme priority areas, and how this understanding can drive knowledge creation and dissemination, innovation and scaling up, and more productive partnerships.

Duties and Responsibilities

It is envisaged that this assignment will be spent on tasks related to due diligence, private sector partnerships. The intern will work under the overall supervision of the Chief, Development Impact Group, supported by the Due Diligence team.

In particular, the intern will be responsible for the following outputs:

Due diligence, Private Sector partnerships

  • Conduct reputational risk- benefit analysis and assessment of perspective private sector partners
  • Evaluate the Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) performance of private sector entities;
  • Support the policy review of UNDP Policy on Due Diligence and Partnerships with the Private Sector
  • Undertake research and conduct analysis of the relevant risk mitigation strategies of other UN agencies
  • Develop template for risk mitigation and communication plans;
  • Provide contributions to the development and/or update of relevant guidance and tools;
  • Support the day to day implementation and dissemination of the UNDP Policy on Due Diligence and Partnerships with the Private Sector
  • Participating in meetings and perform other support tasks as required.

Competencies

Core Values and Guiding Principles:

  • Integrity: Demonstrating consistency in upholding and promoting the values of UNDP in actions and decisions, in line with the UN Code of Conduct.
  • Cultural Sensitivity/Valuing diversity: Demonstrating an appreciation of the multicultural nature of the organization and the diversity of its staff. Demonstrating an international outlook, appreciating differences in values and learning from cultural diversity.

Corporate Competencies:

  • Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN's values and ethical standards;
  • Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP and the UN;
  • Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
  • Treats all people fairly without favoritism.

Required Skills and Experience

  • Enrollment in a graduate-level degree programme at the time of application and during the internship (if a candidate is graduating before the internship period begins, they are no longer eligible) or be enrolled in the final academic year of a first university degree programme (minimum Bachelor’s level or equivalent);
  • Experience in research and analysis.
  • Excellent communication and writing skills.
  • Excellent interpersonal skills.
  • Experience organizing meetings.
  • Computer proficiency, including working knowledge of MS Office products. Experience managing web portals is an asset.
  • Prior experience with NGOs, UN, or international institutions is a strong asset.
  • Experience working collaboratively in a team structure in a multicultural environment.
  • Fluency in spoken and written English. Second official UN language an asset.