Background

The UNDP Seoul Policy Centre (USPC) for Global Development Partnerships, established in 2011, represents UNDP in Korea, works with Korea on international issues, and shares Korea’s development experiences with other countries. The Centre’s work is organized under four headlines: 1) Global Development Issues, 2) Development Solutions Partnerships, 3) Policy Analysis, and 4) Communications and Outreach.

USPC offers a small group of outstanding final year undergraduate, and graduate students, the opportunity to acquire direct exposure to UNDP’s work and gain technical knowledge and experience in international development and multilateral cooperation.

For more information on USPC’s work, please visit the website: http://www.undp.org/uspc

Objectives and Benefits:

An internship with USPC will offer students the opportunity to:

• enhance educational experience though work assignments in the field of international development cooperation;
• acquire insights into working in the United Nations with a multicultural environment;
• sharpen technical skills in a wide array of practical office work, including research & analysis, administration, organization of international events, and communications
• receive substantive guidance and mentoring support from experienced professionals for career development;
• prepare applied analytical papers in specific aspects of development cooperation useful for the UNDP Policy Centre that can also be used toward meeting academic requirements.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the guidance of professional staff, interns will support the Centre’s work in the following main areas of work, as appropriate to their backgrounds and interests:

• Working with Korea on the global development agenda, including the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation and private sector engagement, and the Post-2015 agenda for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs);
• Facilitating and strengthening engagements and substantive exchange of knowledge among Korea, UNDP, and developing countries on key development issues as part of a team acting as a knowledge broker and convener.
• Policy research and analysis on key development issues for sharing with Korean as well as international partners;
• Implementing the Centre’s communications strategy, including public outreach through web, social media and news media channels, as well as producing publications.

Under these four pillars, specific tasks may include:

• Conducting research and producing briefs on various issues of international development cooperation such as South-South and triangular development cooperation, Sustainable Development Goals, Korea’s development experiences (e.g., on corruption prevention, public access to information, e-Government, public infrastructure management, gender equality), environment & green economy issues, and natural disaster risk reduction areas, as well as local governance;
• Documenting, translating and packaging Korea’s development experience and lessons learnt with an international perspective as a basis of knowledge exchange and triangular cooperation;
• Designing & implementing pilot projects and partnership activities to share with developing countries Korea’s specific experience in the area of anti-corruption such as the Anti-Corruption Initiative Assessment of the Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission of Korea, and the Clean Construction System for Transparent Management of Public Infrastructures of the Seoul Metropolitan Government; and gender-based violence.
• Translating publications, papers, web content and other materials from English to Korean and vice-versa
• Supporting the organization of UNDP meetings and events, such as roundtables on Sustainable Development Goals, Annual Forum on Global Partnership on Effective Development Cooperation, webinars and study visits, conferences on youth and private sector engagement.
• Performing liaison support and administrative tasks as necessary in the day-to-day office operation
• Supporting communications and advocacy infrastructure (website, social media channels, media presence, public outreach) to ensure effective advocacy on the main areas of work of the USPC.

Work Arrangements:

The preferred duration of the internship is six months. (The internship can be extended up to 9 months if the intern can demonstrate it will grant him/her an educational credit for a course.) The number of working hours per week will be agreed before the internship begins. It is desired that the intern will work at least 25-30 hours per week during usual business hours. If that is not possible due to coursework or other outstanding commitments, other work arrangements will be determined based on mutual agreement between the supervisor and intern. The intern will work in the USPC office where work space and an email address will be provided.

Competencies

• Interest and motivation in working in an international organization;
• Good analytical skills in gathering and consolidating data and research for practical implementation;
• Outgoing and initiative-taking person with a goal oriented mind-set;
• Communicates effectively when working in teams and independently;
• Good in organizing and structuring various tasks and responsibilities;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Responds positively to feedback and differing points of view;
• Consistently approaches work with energy and a positive, constructive attitude.

Required Skills and Experience

• Must be enrolled in the final year of an undergraduate study programme or a graduate-study programme, or have graduated within one year from the aforementioned. Those in the first, second, or third-year undergraduate programs are not eligible to apply;
• Education: Academic training in a social science area (e.g., international development, international relations, law, political science, public administration, or related field), journalism, media and communications, or Korean-English translation/interpretation;
• Experience: prior experience with government policy work, international development projects, policy research, communications (social media, blog, web management, multimedia) and Korean-English translations would be an asset;
• Demonstrated interest in the field of development;
• Demonstrated research and analytical capacity;
• Strong interest and training in drafting and editing policy-related documents;
• Proven ability to manage diverse and complex tasks with tight deadlines;
• Able to work effectively in a team and in an international environment;
• Administrative skills in the organizing of meetings and events;
• Excellent written and communication skills;
• Proficiency in using standard software programmes: Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook; and in multimedia and new media software
• Languages: Strong writing and speaking abilities in English; fluency in Korean is not required but would be an asset

Conditions:

Interns are not financially remunerated by UNDP. The costs associated with the internship must be borne by the nominating institution, related institution or government, which may provide the required financial assistance to its students; or by the student, who will have to obtain financing for subsistence and make his/her own arrangements for travel, accommodation, etc.

The purpose of the Internship Program is to complement an intern’s studies. Therefore, there should be no expectation of employment at the end of an internship. However, a number of interns, having completed their studies and met the necessary requirements, have gone on to further assignments with the UNDP or elsewhere in the United Nations system.

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.