IO/UNS Newsletter [04/05/22]

Dear IO/UNS Community, 

Welcome to the final four weeks of classes! We hope you are enjoying the warmer weather and feeling excited about Summer opportunities. For those still looking for internships, don't forget to check out our list of curated UN internship opportunities later in this newsletter.

Join us on April 7 - the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda - as we commemorate the dignity of the victims of the crime of genocide and of the prevention of this crime, including a keynote address by Ambassador Claver Gatete, Permanent Representative of Rwanda to the United Nations

Additionally, please mark your calendars for our End of Year Social on Friday, April 29th from 6:00pm-8:00pm. RSVP here and more information to follow. 

Additionally, in this newsletter, you will find: 

• Event Recaps
• What We’re Listening To
• IO/UNS Student Spotlight
• Events at SIPA and Beyond
• Internship Opportunities

**Please note this message is clipped. You can open the message in a new browser to see full event and internship listings.

Cheers,
Daniel, Nate & Yun
IO/UNS Specialization Team

Event Recap and Recording: UN Victim's Rights Advocate

On Wednesday, March 30 IO/UNS was priviledged to host UN's Victim's Rights Advocate, Jane Connors. UN Assistant Secretary-General Connors joined us in-person with a number of students while others joined online.

For those of you unable to attend the event, you can watch a recording. Additionally, you can check out the activities of the Victim's Rights Advocate here. 

In January 2020, the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs launched the Innovation Cell, an interdisciplinary team dedicated to helping the Department and its field presences to understand and explore, pilot, and scale new technologies, approaches, and practices in conflict prevention, mediation and peacebuilding. Examples include predictive data analytics, strategic foresight, remote sensing and innovation methodologies. Responding to the Secretary-General’s call on the UN system to accelerate its uptake of innovative methods, the Innovation Cell catalyses innovation in peace and security, while providing a forum for colleagues at UNHQ and in the field to engage collaboratively in human-centred design and problem-solving.

The Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) internship is for a period of three months with the opportunity to extend up to six months, depending on the needs and requirements of the Department. The positions will be located in the Innovation Cell of the DPPA’s Policy and Mediation Division.

The Innovation Cell intends to recruit two interns. Depending on the pandemic, the internship can be in-person or remote. The internships do not carry any payment or retribution expectation. Interns work remotely five days per week (35 hours) under the supervision of a staff member.

To apply, please visit the job posting here.

With its extensive network of country offices, expertise in key development areas such as Poverty/Growth, Good Governance, Environment and Climate Change, Crisis Prevention and Recovery, and Gender, as well as a convening and coordinating role for UN development assistance, UNDP has since 1993 partnered with Japan to support the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) process as one of the key fora for the advancement of dialogue and collaboration on African development.

As one of the co-organizers of TICAD, along with the Government of Japan, the UN Office of the Special Advisor on Africa (OSAA), the World Bank and the African Union Commission (AUC), UNDP has hosted the TICAD Unit, which has been integrated into the UNDP Regional Bureau of Africa (RBA). Through the TICAD unit, UNDP has played an indispensable role to ensure smooth operationalization of the TICAD process with coordination of key actors and provision of substantive inputs and logistical support, including the organization of conferences and implementation of follow-up mechanisms, to advocate and communicate about TICAD, targeting a wide-range of audiences in Japan, Africa, and beyond by collaborating with African countries on key development priorities.

The upcoming TICAD8 will be held from 27-28 August 2022, and it is imperative for UNDP to accelerate the preparatory process which includes substantive, operational, logistical, and programmatic aspects.

The TICAD Unit is also instrumental in the provision of strategic and advisory outreach to facilitate collaboration between Japanese counterparts and UNDP country offices, particularly Japan funded projects in Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2022, the TICAD Unit is currently supporting the overview of 17 projects totalling 30.5 million USD in 13 countries.

*Note that the internship will be 100% home-based in principle

To apply, please visit the job posting here.

UNDP is the knowledge frontier organization for sustainable development in the UN Development System and serves as the integrator for collective action to realize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

UNDP's policy work carried out at HQ Regional and Country Office levels, forms a contiguous spectrum of deep local knowledge to cutting-edge global perspectives and advocacy.

In order to streamline its financial and investment engagement, UNDP launched the Sustainable Finance Hub, a finance and innovation platform, that draws on a critical mass of UNDP expertise, initiatives, and partnerships to align public and private capital flows with the SDGs and mobilise finance at scale. The Hub serves as a connector, broker and global coordinator among internal and external actors; curates and manages UNDP's catalogue of service offers on SDG financing to governments, investors and companies, via UNDP country offices, to significantly enhance the scale and impact of UNDP's work.

The Hub is an integral part of both the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS), the Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy (BERA), and the Global Policy Network GPN a network of field-based and global technical expertise across a wide range of knowledge domains. The Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) has the responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of U'DP's Strategic Plan. BPPS also assists 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. Lastly, BPPS supports UNDP and partners to be more innovative, knowledge and data driven including in its programme support efforts. Through the Sustainable Finance Hub, UNDP has been increasing its engagement in global financial and economic policy making, including by carrying out work in different forums (i.e., G7, G20, UN's Financing for sustainable development, etc.) as well as other regulatory and market-based networks. Furthermore, UNDP Sustainable Finance Hub runs the Secretariat of the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group (SFWG). As such, it assists G20 Presidencies in the implementation of their G20 priorities on sustainable finance.

To apply, please visit the job posting here.

UNDP is the knowledge frontier organization for sustainable development in the UN Development System and serves as the integrator for collective action to realize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

UNDP's policy work carried out at HQ Regional and Country Office levels, forms a contiguous spectrum of deep local knowledge to cutting-edge global perspectives and advocacy.

In order to streamline its financial and investment engagement, UNDP launched the Sustainable Finance Hub, a finance and innovation platform, that draws on a critical mass of UNDP expertise, initiatives, and partnerships to align public and private capital flows with the SDGs and mobilise finance at scale. The Hub serves as a connector, broker and global coordinator among internal and external actors; curates and manages UNDP's catalogue of service offers on SDG financing to governments, investors and companies, via UNDP country offices, to significantly enhance the scale and impact of UNDP's work.

The Hub is an integral part of both the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS), the Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy (BERA), and the Global Policy Network GPN a network of field-based and global technical expertise across a wide range of knowledge domains. The Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) has the responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of U’DP's Strategic Plan. BPPS also assists 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. Lastly, BPPS supports UNDP and partners to be more innovative, knowledge and data driven including in its programme support efforts.  

Through the Sustainable Finance Hub, UNDP has been increasing its engagement in global financial and economic policy making, including by carrying out work in different forums (i.e., G7, G20, UN’s Financing for sustainable development, etc.) as well as other regulatory and market-based networks. Furthermore, UNDP Sustainable Finance Hub runs the Secretariat of the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group (SFWG). As such, it assists G20 Presidencies in the implementation of their G20 priorities on sustainable finance.

To apply, please visit the job posting here.

UNDP is the knowledge frontier organization for sustainable development in the UN Development System and serves as the integrator for collective action to realize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

UNDP's policy work carried out at HQ Regional and Country Office levels, forms a contiguous spectrum of deep local knowledge to cutting-edge global perspectives and advocacy.

In order to streamline its financial and investment engagement, UNDP launched the Sustainable Finance Hub, a finance and innovation platform, that draws on a critical mass of UNDP expertise, initiatives, and partnerships to align public and private capital flows with the SDGs and mobilise finance at scale. The Hub serves as a connector, broker and global coordinator among internal and external actors; curates and manages UNDP's catalogue of service offers on SDG financing to governments, investors and companies, via UNDP country offices, to significantly enhance the scale and impact of UNDP's work.

The Hub is an integral part of both the Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS), the Bureau of External Relations and Advocacy (BERA), and the Global Policy Network GPN a network of field-based and global technical expertise across a wide range of knowledge domains. The Bureau for Policy and Programme Support (BPPS) has the responsibility for developing all relevant policy and guidance to support the results of U’DP's Strategic Plan. BPPS also assists 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. Lastly, BPPS supports UNDP and partners to be more innovative, knowledge and data driven including in its programme support efforts.  

Through the Sustainable Finance Hub, UNDP has been increasing its engagement in global financial and economic policy making, including by carrying out work in different forums (i.e., G7, G20, UN’s Financing for sustainable development, etc.) as well as other regulatory and market-based networks. Furthermore, UNDP Sustainable Finance Hub runs the Secretariat of the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group (SFWG). As such, it assists G20 Presidencies in the implementation of their G20 priorities on sustainable finance.

To apply, please visit the job posting here.

UNDP’s Crisis Bureau (CB) has corporate responsibility for UNDP’s corporate crisis-related work and driving UNDP’s vision and priorities for crisis prevention, response, and recovery, to support the strategic results, outcomes and outputs of UNDP's Strategic Plan. CB teams provide technical advice to Country Offices; advocate UNDP corporate messages; represent UNDP as required, including at multi-stakeholder fora, public-private, and government-civil society dialogue initiatives; promote and support South-South and Triangular cooperation initiatives; and engage in UN interagency coordination in the areas of work the Strategic Plan – building resilience to shocks and crises, in order to safeguard development gains.

Within the CB, the Conflict Prevention, Peacebuilding and Responsive Institutions (CPPRI) team works on the integration of governance, conflict prevention and peacebuilding interventions. The CPPRI team leads and coordinates UNDP's corporate, global approach on how to prevent violent extremism (PVE) from a development perspective. This approach continues to evolve and develop in response to the changing strategies of violent extremist groups, government responses and development of new policy frameworks. In support hereof, UNDP commissions new research, identifies best practices and promote knowledge sharing across multiple stakeholders supporting the prevention of violent extremism. The communication and dissemination of these results are essential for enhancing the quality of programming, building and maintaining partnerships, and facilitate knowledge exchange across a community of practice.

It is within this context that UNDP is seeking a Communication Intern to support the visualisation of data, dissemination, and communication of the PVE work by supporting the communication strategy development and implementation of the CPRRI PVE team. The intern will engage with the PVE Team in New York as well as colleagues in Country Offices and Regional Hubs to enhance communication across the practice.

This position will expose the intern to unique insights on implementation of peacebuilding and prevention of violent extremism programmes across the 42 countries in which UNDP implements PVE projects. Furthermore, the nature of the tasks will offer the intern great opportunities to develop analytical skills, strategic writing and communication within international development. The intern will have a unique opportunity to operate in a diverse and dynamic global workspace and expand personal and professional networks. The supervisor will work closely with the intern to identify and track learning objectives, provide quality assurance and feedback.

To apply, please visit the job posting here.

The UN Capital Development Fund makes public and private finance work for the poor in the world’s 46 least developed countries (LDCs).

UNCDF offers “last mile” finance models that unlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development.

UNCDF’s financing models work through three channels: (1) inclusive digital economies, which connects individuals, households, and small businesses with financial eco-systems that catalyze participation in the local economy, and provide tools to climb out of poverty and manage financial lives; (2) local development finance, which capacitates localities through fiscal decentralization, innovative municipal finance, and structured project finance to drive local economic expansion and sustainable development; and (3) investment finance, which provides catalytic financial structuring, de-risking, and capital deployment to drive SDG impact and domestic resource mobilization.

The Local Transformative Finance Practice employs its flagship Dual Key: Investing with Impact methodology to its revenue generating pipelines. This highly recognised and successful approach ensures that selected investments meet both the financial and thematic impact requirements, according to measurable indicators, impact assessment filters and criteria, while ensuring the financial sustainability and transformative impact of the investments on the local economy. The LTF Dual Key Investment Committee was established in 2017, with high profile internal and external members,  to provide oversight on the investments and support the decision-making process on the financial and development impact credibility and sustainability

The Intern will be part of the Dual Key SDG Impact Team, Local Transformative Finance Practice, in UNCDF Headquarters in New York (USA). (https://www.uncdf.org/dual-key )

Under the guidance and supervision of the Dual Key Investment Manager, and in close coordination with the Dual Key Communications Lead, the Intern will support the implementation of the UNCDF Dual Key communications workplan for 2022, including various related tasks to (i) Communications and Branding and (ii) SDG Impact, Knowledge Management and lessons learned across the investment portfolio.

To apply, please visit the job posting here.

The UN Capital Development Fund makes public and private finance work for the poor in the world’s 46 least developed countries (LDCs).

UNCDF offers “last mile” finance models that unlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development.

UNCDF pursues innovative financing solutions through: (1) financial inclusion, which expands the opportunities for individuals, households, and small and medium-sized enterprises to participate in the local economy, while also providing differentiated products for women and men so they can climb out of poverty and manage their financial lives; (2) local development finance, which shows how fiscal decentralization, innovative municipal finance, and structured project finance can drive public and private funding that underpins local economic expansion, women’s economic empowerment, climate adaptation, and sustainable development; and (3) a least developed countries investment platform that deploys a tailored set of financial instruments to a growing pipeline of impactful projects in the “missing middle.’’

UNCDF is seeking an intern to be part of the Partnerships, Policy and Communications Unit (PPC) in its Headquarters located in New York, United States. Working under the guidance and supervision of the Head of PPC, and working closely with PPC staff, the intern will support the ongoing workplan and goals of the unit, including but not limited to expanding partnerships; preparing policy briefs for high level meetings; supporting the launch of major initiatives on blended finance and enterprises in Africa; and building and maintaining a base of knowledge about Member States.

To apply, please visit the job posting here.

The internship is for an initial period of three months, with an opportunity for extension up to a total period of six months. The internship is UNPAID and full-time. Interns work five days per week (35 hours). This position is located in the Office of the Victims' Rights Advocate (OVRA). The OVRA was created as part of the four-pronged strategy set out in the 2017 report of the Secretary-General to the General Assembly on special measures on protection from sexual exploitation and abuse: a new approach (A/71/818). Its mandate is directed to
ensuring that the rights and dignity of victims are at the forefront of all elements of the United Nations system-wide response to sexual exploitation and abuse alleged to be perpetrated by United Nations uniformed or civilian personnel and non-United Nations troops serving under a Security Council mandate. The intern will support the work of the Office of the Victims' Rights Advocate and work under the supervision of the Human Rights Officer.

To apply, please visit the job posting here.

The Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (OHRLLS) internship is for two months with an opportunity for extension, depending on the needs of the department. For more information, please see: https://un.org/ohrlls

The internship is UNPAID and full-time.

Interns work five days per week (35 hours) under the supervision of a staff member in the department or office to which they are assigned.

To apply, please visit the job posting here.

Follow the IO/UNS Specialization on
CampusGroups, Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp.

Feel free to reach out to us:
Daniel Naujoks, Interim Director, daniel.naujoks@columbia.edu
To book office hours, click here.

Yun Liang, Program Assistant, yun.liang@columbia.edu
Nate Edwards, Program Assistant, nke2113@columbia.edu