Operations Intern (MST)

Contract

This is a Internship contract. It usually requires 0 years of experience, depending on education. More about Internship contracts.

Background

The UNDP Regional Bureau for Africa (RBA) leads the work of the United Nations Development Programme in the Sub-Saharan African region to implement the organization’s Strategic Plan, driven by the vision to eliminate poverty and significantly reduce inequalities and exclusion. RBA provides proactive strategic oversight and support to forty-six country offices by responding to their demand for policy and programme advice, and by ensuring alignment of country programmes with regional and corporate priorities.

The UNDP RBA Management Support Team (MST) is seeking a highly qualified graduate student to engage as an Intern to provide support to the Regional Bureau in its role to exercise proper oversight and guide country offices in the operational areas in response to programmes and projects, sharing knowledge and advice on best practices as per guidelines. Review the periodic information generated through corporate tools, analyse the regional and specific country offices trends, contacting CO’s to highlight areas of improvements, identifying potential issues for key milestones, such as quarter financial reviews, quarter and year-end closures.

The intern will be supervised and report to the Senior Operations Advisor. The intern will support MST, working closely with the operations team, the country and regional advisors, COs, and BMS focal points, to collect and share information related to county offices and regional hubs.

The internship is for a maximum of 6 months. The internship is not paid (however a stipend is provided) and is full-time. Interns work five days per week (35 hours) and expected to work all days at UNDP offices.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Intern will be responsible to:

• Review information and statistics available through corporate tools, systems, dashboards, papers and , analysing the data available, preparing summary reports on the operational performance of CO’s.
• Review the periodic information generated through corporate tools, analyse the regional and specific country offices trends, contacting CO’s to highlight areas of improvements, identifying potential issues for key milestones, such as quarter financial reviews, quarter and year-end closures.Maintain and regularly update calendar and tasks of the Special Assistant for the Directorate.
• Identify areas for improvement, preparing generic and specific communications to address these areas. Using information and data generated RBA specific reports and tools, signal deviating trends from standards that put at risk the performance indicators of the region and country offices.
• Collect information and share knowledge on the operational areas, keeping country offices informed on key and relevant milestones; ensuring that operational focal points are up-to-date with changes in terms of policies revisions.
• Participate in a cross-organisational project, contribute to the development and implementation of a solution to address challenges and harness opportunities. Demonstrate an ability to work as part of a diverse team to advance innovation and continuous improvement. Detail and deliverables will be provided upon assignment of the project.

Competencies

General:

• Able to take initiative and work independently, with minimum supervision,
• Highest standards of integrity, discretion, and loyalty,
• Excellent organizational, inter-personal, communication and administrative skills,
• Proven ability to manage diverse and complex tasks, with tight deadlines,
• Commitment to the UNDP vision, mission, and strategic goals.

Communicating with impact:

• Ability to communicate in a clear, concise and unambiguous manner both through written and verbal communication
• Ability to listen, check the understanding and keep people informed
• Ability to manage communications externally, including with media, partners
• Ability to tailor messages and choose communication methods depending on the audience
• Ability to analyse and effectively use social media and other communication channels

Achieve results:

• Demonstrates focus on achieving quality results and objectives
• Consistently strives to meet or exceed a standard of excellence; sets challenging goals and take calculated risks
• Efficiently establishes appropriate plans and resources for self and others to accomplish goals
• Holds self and others accountable for results

Think innovatively and strive for excellence:

• Looks beyond conventional approaches and established methods
• Proposes new ideas, approaches and solutions to problems
• Seeks patterns and clarity outside, across, beyond boxes and categories while resisting false certainty and simplistic binary choices

Learn continuously:

• Actively pursues opportunities for learning and self-development professionally and personally
• Keeps abreast of new developments in one’s professional area
• Proactively seeks feedback, demonstrates a desire to learn from others as well as from experiences, both positive and negative
• Contributes to the learning of others

Act with agility

• Is flexible in handling change, and adopts new ideas or approaches
• Seamlessly adapts to working within new situations or contexts, with new people, and in different ways
• Supports, contributes or drives to meaningful change in UNDP
• Is comfortable with ambiguity and juggling multiple demands
• Adopts and is comfortable with new more flexible ways of working

Act with determination and resilience

• Pursues everything with energy and drive
• Does not give up in the face of adversity and setbacks; demonstrates resilience and composure
• Demonstrates courage, self-motivation and initiative to act on opportunities without being prompted by others
• Makes decisions with conviction, even in the face of uncertainty or limited information

Engage and build relationships

• Acts in a way that demonstrates empathy and a consideration for the needs and feelings of others
• Demonstrates honesty and transparency
• Demonstrates and encourages teamwork and co-creation internally and externally to achieve joint goals
• Establishes and develops networks that deliver powerful collaborations

Promote and enable inclusion

• Treats all individuals with respect, considers ethical implications and responds sensitively to differences
• Ensures individuals feel valued for being different but also as though they belong, creating an inclusive environment
• Understands and appreciates issues from the perspective of other cultures and countries
• Role models the UN value of respect for diversity

Act with humility

• Encourages and respects the views of others; accepts views and ideas other than one’s own
• Is authentic; is modest, gets things done without unnecessary noise
• Admits flaws and mistakes

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Applicants to the UNDP internship programme must at the time of application meet one of the following requirements:

• Be enrolled in a graduate school programme (second university degree or equivalent, or higher in a relevant field of expertise such as public administration, finance, international relations, information management, information systems, social science or related field),
• Have graduated with a university degree (as described above) and, if selected, must start the internship within one-year of graduation.

Experience:

• Have demonstrated ability to successfully interact with individuals of different cultural backgrounds and beliefs, which include willingness to try and understand and be tolerant of differing opinions and views.
• Preferably some relevant experience in international development or related area; Highly desirable: paid or unpaid experience of working within National or local governments; International affairs and/or international development corporation; The field of social work; Civil society organisations; NGOs; International organisations; A group advancing innovative solutions to improve the lives of others.
• Knowledge of the UN system is an advantage.
• Excellent analytical skills are required.
• Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages.

Languages:

• Fluency in oral and written English is required,
• Knowledge of French and/or Spanish is a major asset.

Intern conditions:

• UNDP internship programme does not provide a salary or remuneration for the internship,
• UNDP offers a modest monthly stipend to help cover basic daily expenses related to the internship, such as meals and transportation at the duty station,
• All other expenses connected with the internship will be borne by the intern, sponsoring Government, or institution,
• UNDP accepts no responsibility for costs arising from accidents and/or illness or death incurred during the internship,
• The intern is responsible for obtaining necessary visas and arranging travel to and from the duty station where the internship will be performed,
• Interns are not eligible to apply for, or be appointed to, any post in UNDP during the period of the internship,
• The intern must provide proof of enrollment in health insurance plan,
• Interns are not staff members and may not represent UNDP in any official capacity.