Background

The UN Reform Resolution tasks UNDP to provide countries with an “integrator function” to accelerate progress towards the SDGs by tackling multiple interlinked and interdependent development challenges. The UNDP Global Policy Network (GPN) draws on expertise globally to provide more effective responses to the complex development challenges countries face in achieving the SDGs and responding to crisis in an integrated and coherent manner. Anchored in the Crisis Bureau (CB) and the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS), the GPN has the responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of UNDP’s Strategic Plan, which is aligned with the 2030 Agenda Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

 

An SDG Integration Team located with UNDP’s Global Policy Network (GPN) offers a menu of services emphasizing direct short- to medium-term engagements to respond rapidly to requests from country offices for support on national implementation and monitoring of integrated policy solutions, qualitative and evidence-driven analysis for accelerated progress, and knowledge sharing and upscaling of innovative approaches to sustainable development. The team’s work emphasizes the application of evidence-driven data and analytics for SDG implementation and reporting.

 

In this regard, advances in digital technology are creating data at unprecedented levels of detail and speed, turning the stories of people’s lives into numbers every minute of every day, across the globe. An important focus of the integration work is to complement traditional data (e.g., national statistics, NHDR like analysis) with new and alternative sources including digital ‘breadcrumbs,’ satellite data, and social media to identify emerging trends and gain new perspectives on issues in development.

 

Under the guidance of the Global Policy Advisor of the SDG Integration Bureau for Policy and Programme Support/Global Policy Network, the Data and Analytics Interns will support the Integration Team’s within three workstreams, including (1) Economic Modelling, (2) Statistical Data Analysis, and (3) Geospatial Data.

Duties and Responsibilities

In the cover note, candidate should indicate the track they are interested in:

  • TRACK 1: Integrated policy
  • TRACK 2: Microeconomic modelling and analysis
  • TRACK 3: Macroeconomic modelling and analysis
  • TRACK 4: Data visualization
  • TRACK 5: Geospatial analysis
  • TRACK 6: Data Science

TRACK 1: INTEGRATED POLICY

  • Supporting the enablement of peer support by assisting the organization of workshops and events, including trainings, e-discussions, consultations related to UN inter-governmental processes relating to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,
  • Supporting the co-creation of knowledge as well as the mobilization of existing knowledge on the practice of integrated policy and the implications for the SDGs;
  • Supporting the showcasing of concrete applications of integrated policy support and lessons learned by assisting the development of policy papers, studies, reports, blogs, insights stories, newsletters.

TRACK 2: MICROECONOMIC MODELLING AND ANALYSIS

  • Assist in analysing recent and on-going changes in development indicators
  • Support the development of  micro econometric models and respective analysis to assess the impact of various development policies/interventions on the specific outcomes
  • Identify, organize and add micro and sectoral data, particularly from developing countries, to existing databases
  • Support the update of social account matrixes (SAM) and further development of structural econometric and general equilibrium models
  • Support drafting of different documents (e.g. reports, briefs and concept notes).

TRACK 3: MACROECONOMIC MODELLING AND ANALYSIS

  • Assist in analysing recent and on-going changes in development indicators
  • Support the development of macro econometric models and respective analysis to assess the impact of various development policies/interventions on the specific outcomes
  • Identify, organize and add macro and sectoral data, particularly from developing countries, to existing databases
  • Support the update of social account matrixes (SAM) and further development of structural econometric and general equilibrium models
  • Support drafting of different documents (e.g. reports, briefs and concept notes).

TRACK 4: DATA VISUALIZATION

  • Present visual concepts and ideas in a compelling and attractive manner;
  • Assist with design and development of data visualization;
  • Research, identify, and test tools and resources to support analysis of various data sources;
  • Collaborate with the team to collect and analyse data
  • Generate infographics to support decision makers in their understanding workflows;
  • Participate in information management discussions and assist in the design of data visualization guidelines;
  • Create branding material and engaging visual products in accordance with UN design standards and policies on schedule and delivered in a timely manner;
  • Other activities and special projects as assigned.

TRACK 5: GEOSPATIAL ANALYSIS

  • Perform tasks associated with geospatial data management and curation;
  • Develop scalable and efficient geospatial data processing pipelines using python language and industry standard open-source tools and software libraries;
  • Conduct geospatial analysis (raster and vector based) using standard tools and libraries in python language;
  • Create and publish interactive maps using desktop and web-based tools.

TRACK 6: DATA SCIENCE

  • Perform methodological and domain-specific research to support data science projects.
  • Assist with the collection, cleaning, and preprocessing of large sets of data, including structured data, web data, text, and social media data.
  • Build, test, and deploy Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML) models for portfolio and project analytics under the guidance of senior data scientists.
  • Create visualizations to communicate findings and prepare documentation and presentations to share progress and insights.

Competencies

Candidate should have the following competencies:

  • Self-starter, organized, independent and reliable
  • Able to multitask and balance multiple responsibilities
  • Demonstrated ability to successfully interact with individuals of diverse cultural backgrounds and sensitivity to differing opinions and views

Required Skills and Experience

Interns are selected on a competitive basis. Applicants to UNDP internships must at the time of application meet one of the following academic requirements:

  • (a) Be enrolled in a graduate school programme (second university degree or equivalent, or higher);
  • (b) Be enrolled in the final academic year of a first university degree programme (minimum Bachelor’s level or equivalent);
  • (c) Have graduated with a university degree (as defined in (a) and (b) above) and, if selected, must start the internship within one-year of graduation.
  • (d) be enrolled in a postgraduate professional traineeship program and undertake the internship as part of this program.

 

Education

Background in Economics, Statistics, Mathematics or related fields. A background in the preferred fields of study indicated below are a plus.

TRACK 1: INTEGRATED POLICY

  • Preferred fields of study: Economics, Public Policy, Development, Social Studies or related fields.

TRACK 2: MICROECONOMIC MODELLING AND ANALYSIS

  • Preferred fields of study: Applied Economics, Microeconomics, Public Policy, Development, Social Studies or related fields.

TRACK 3: MACROECONOMIC MODELLING AND ANALYSIS

  • Preferred fields of study: Applied Economics, Macroeconomics, Public Policy, Development, Social Studies or related fields.

TRACK 4: DATA VISUALIZATION

  • Preferred fields of study: IT, Information Management, Design or related fields.

TRACK 5: GEOSPATIAL ANALYSIS

  • Preferred fields of study: Geographic Information Systems, Geospatial Intelligence, Remote Sensing, or related fields.  

TRACK 6: DATA SCIENCE

  • Preferred fields of study: Data Science, Computer Science, or related fields.

 

Experience

  • Knowledge of SDG implementation at national level
  • Experience with data and statistical analysis
  • Understanding of policy and economic topics, issues and trends
  • Experience managing projects
  • Experience coordinating across a variety of stakeholders

Experience as mentioned below is considered a plus.

TRACK 1: INTEGRATED POLICY

  • Experience in technical exchange facilitation, research and analysis, and program management of international cooperation.
  • Knowledge of sustainable development concepts, principles and issues and the ability to apply to strategic and/or practical situations, covering the economic, social and environmental dimensions.
  • Familiarity with the UN system

TRACK 2: MICROECONOMIC MODELLING AND ANALYSIS

  • Experience conducting primary/secondary data collection (e.g. censuses/household surveys) and literature review on topics related to development economics
  • Experience conducting microeconomic analysis/research on multidimensional development challenges using quantitative and qualitative research methods
  • Knowledge of the SDGs and their application at the national/sub-national levels
  • Experience reviewing/analysing data from developing regions
  • Experience working with R, Stata, Python

TRACK 3: MACRO ECONOMIC MODELLING AND ANALYSIS

  • Experience conducting primary/secondary data collection  Experience with theoretical and empirical macroeconomic modelling, simulations and forecasting Knowledge of the SDGs and their application at the national/sub-national levels
  • Experience on macro-economic issues related to developing country/regional context
  • Experience working with Matlab, R, GAMS, Python

TRACK 4: DATA VISUALIZATION

  • Great foundational visual design skills (e.g.; layout, grid systems, composition, typography, color) that show skills in presenting complex visual information with awareness for information hierarchy
  • Ability to work with JavaScript (d3 and react), HTML and CSS
  • Ability to design dashboard and data stories with visualization tools such as Tableau, powerBI or flourish
  • Experience with data analysis with python or R is a plus
  • Familiarity with typescript and git is also a great plus

TRACK 5: GEOSPATIAL ANALYSIS

  • Experience with using Python for geo-processing
  • Experience with various GIS data formats and processing libraries (GDAL, rasterio, numpy, shapely)
  • Experience compiling and standardizing geospatial datasets in a data pipeline
  • Experience with desktop GIS software such as QGIS
  • Basic experience with PostGIS spatial database
  • Familiarity with publicly available geospatial datasets related to development
  • Basic knowledge in using cloud-based solutions to manage geospatial data (Azure)

TRACK 6: DATA SCIENCE

  • A good understanding of data science concepts and ML/NLP techniques, including entity extraction, sentiment analysis, topic modeling, text classification, etc.
  • Experience with Python programming language and its libraries such as pandas, numpy, and scikit-learn for data manipulation and analysis.
  • Experience with collecting, cleaning, analyzing, and visualizing structured and unstructured data.
  • Familiarity with cloud computing services and databases is a plus.
  • Passion for learning new technologies and methods.

Languages

  • Excellent English language skills.
  • Knowledge of another UN language is desirable.

 

Conditions of internship

Internships within the UN system are subject to following conditions, which the candidates should familiarize themselves with prior to applying:

  • UNDP HQ will provide a stipend in the amount of USD 1,000 monthly in accordance with the provisions of the UNDP Internship Policy;
  • Any further 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 or her arrangements for travel, accommodation and other costs;
  • UNDP accepts no responsibility for the medical and life insurance of the intern or costs arising from accidents and illness incurred during an internship. The Intern must provide proof of enrolment in a health insurance plan;
  • UNDP does not provide assistance with travel and/or housing and the Intern will be responsible for obtaining the necessary visas and arranging travel to and from the duty station where the internship will be performed;
  • The purpose of the Internship Programme is not to lead to further employment within the UN System, but to complement an intern’s studies. Therefore, there should be no expectation of employment at the end of an internship. The Intern will not be eligible to apply for, or be appointed to, any post in UNDP during the period of internship or for the six months immediately following the expiration date thereof;
  • Interns will need to use their own laptop/notebook. A workstation with wireless internet access will be provided at the Centre’s facilities and supervisory support provided by the Centre staff;
  • Interns are not staff members and may not represent UNDP in any official capacity.
  • UNDP only accepts interns for a minimum of 6 weeks and a maximum of 6 months.

Selected candidates must submit following documents prior to joining:

  • Letter from the university confirming current enrolment and graduation date;
  • Copy of passport;
  • A copy of his/her school transcript;
  • Proof of medical insurance including provision for medical evacuation and removal of mortal remains or life insurance and a medical certificate of good health prior to starting the internship.
  • A signed UNDP Internship Agreement.

 

Additional Request: 

Please indicate track number and description on your application as follows: 

  1.  TRACK 1: Integrated policy
  2.  TRACK 2: Microeconomic modelling and analysis
  3. TRACK 3: Macroeconomic modelling and analysis
  4. TRACK 4: Data visualization
  5. TRACK 5: Geospatial analysis
  6. TRACK 6: Data Science