Internship – Call for Applications- Regional Bureau for Arab States New York and Regional Hub in Amman

Background

Anchored in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and in line with the priorities outlined in the UNDP Strategic Plan, the Regional Bureau for Arab States supports the Arab States region to achieve sustainable development by eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, accelerating structural transformations for sustainable development, and building resilience to crises and shocks. Within this work, the Regional Bureau for Arab States responds to needs across development settings including Least Developed Countries, Middle Income Countries, Net Contributor Countries and countries affected by crisis, with a view to support the building of resilience, fight climate change, leverage the promise of innovation, and prioritize the advance of women, youth and vulnerable groups as part of its commitment to the principles of universality, equality and leaving no one behind in an increasing challenging regional context 

RBAS is establishing a roster from which to pool qualified interns during the course of 2025 for a maximum period of 6 months, subject to the needs of the following Teams in New York and Amman. 

RBAS New York 

The Regional Bureau for Arab States (RBAS) serves as the headquarters for UNDP regional programme and country programmes in 16 countries as well as for PAPP. The Bureau proactively engages with internal units and external partners/stakeholders such as the UN Secretariat, the Permanent Missions, donors and the Executive Board, to discuss and facilitate the work of UNDP in the region. The Regional Bureau conducts strategic analysis and monitors development trends to inform the forward-looking directions of the bureau and to support policies and programmes at regional, and country level in alignment with the SDGs, the UNDP Strategic Plan 2022-2025, and the RBAS Regional Programme Document 2022-2025.  The Regional Bureau conducts strategic oversight of the regional and country programmes and focuses on positioning and programmatic and operational oversight to enhance country office, sub-regional and regional programming results and performance. It develops and implements partnership strategies for the region in addition to shaping the definition and implementation of the regional communications strategy and advocacy, as a means of positioning development issues and UNDP as a trusted development partner across the region.

RBAS Amman Regional Hub, Jordan 

The Hub provides expanded technical backing to Country Offices and ensures effective, timely and responsive support focused on UNDP’s realigned programme priorities and tailored to the emerging and changing needs and priorities in the region. The Regional Hub in Amman offers a wide range of support to Country Offices including knowledge services, and operations, strategic policy advice, programme development and implementation, capacity development, policy research and analysis in the following thematic areas:

1.Gender 

The team provides support and advice to Country Offices to ensure all programming in the region is gender responsive and working closely with other technical teams in the regional hub to develop and support programming promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment.  The gender team works towards placing gender equality at the core of political, economic and environmental policy dialogues and decisions, including in fragile and crisis settings. In addition to improve production and use of gender data and statistics and achieve national ownership for policy options to improve gender equality and women’s empowerment. The gender team also works closely with other UN agencies, including UNWomen, UNFPA, ESCWA and ILO on region wide initiatives on gender justice, women economic empowerment and women, peace and security issues.

2. Nature, Climate and Energy 

Regional Nature, Climate and Energy (NCE) team based in Amman supports local programming on climate change adaptation, disaster risk reductions, expanding renewable energy solutions, conserving biodiversity, and enhancing food, land and water security for the poor to help communities manage risks and build resilience. The team manages over 80 projects and $300 million of grants for countries in the Arab Region on these issues, making UNDP and the UN`s leading partner in the region to achieve results under the environmental pillars of the SDGs and global environmental agreements like Paris Agreement on climate change and the Global Biodiversity Framework. The team focuses on:

• Climate change: climate change and drought are acting as a risk multiplier to social instability and conflict in the region, threatening to roll back development gains and entrench poverty. UNDP supports capacities to implement national NDC climate plans, the Paris Agreement and Sendai Framework, in ways that bring dividends to all SDGs. 
• Sustainable energy:support is aimed at helping countries scale-up renewable energy solutions and expand energy access for the poor; designing new low-carbon development strategies; and reducing the energy intensity of urbanization and growth in key sectors of industry, buildings and transport.
• Ecosystems and Natural Resources: UNDP places top priority on developing resilience of communities and ecosystems and supporting more sustainable use of biodiversity, water, land and other resources critical for achieving the SDGs.

3. Governance, Peacebuilding & Crisis Response 

UNDP's priorities in the areas of Governance, Peacebuilding and Crisis Response focus on strengthening inclusive, accountable governance, fostering community resilience, and advancing long-term peace. The team supports quality policy development and programming through regional and country-specific technical advice, addressing areas like conflict prevention, peacebuilding, social cohesion, rule of law, and human rights. In crisis settings, it works to enhance governance systems, strengthen accountability, and promote inclusive participation, particularly for women, youth, and marginalized groups. Efforts also focus on the rule of law, security, and addressing the impacts of conflict and climate change. The team’s approach is conflict- and climate-sensitive, adaptive, and risk-informed, aiming to support recovery, stability, and sustainable peace.

4. SDGs, Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Finance. 

The team supports partners in the region to develop integrated, transformative and scalable solutions to tackle the interconnected challenges of economic diversification and transformation, private sector development, poverty, vulnerability, inequality and exclusion, in ways that are economically, socially and environmentally sustainable. The team assists in enhancing prospects for inclusive growth, jobs and livelihoods at national and local levels, including through economic recovery and resilience-building in crisis and post-crisis contexts, focusing on economically empowering women and youth, and advancing economic opportunities for the most vulnerable. It also supports research, policy and program guidance around: SDG integration (e.g. SDG Push methodologies and Voluntary Local Reviews); local development; macroeconomic stability; public and private financing; impact investment; fiscal policy, taxation and public finance management; social protection; green, local and digital economies and finance.

5. Strategic Innovation  

The Strategic Innovation team supports UNDP Country Offices and regional initiatives to embrace new approaches and methodologies, in collaboration with 13 Accelerator Labs in the region (part of the global network of 91 Accelerator Labs) and UNDP’s Chief Digital Office. As detailed in the UNDP Strategic Plan, strategic innovation is one of three enablers (along with digitalization and development financing) of the organization’s new way of working to support three directions of change: structural transformation, resilience and leaving no one behind.  The Team’s offers leverage multiple approaches to reach systemic change and ultimately great impact, including systems thinking and portfolio approaches as applied to issues such as youth, gender and human rights; behavioral science; futures thinking and foresight; and alternative finance. 

6. Regional Programme 

The Regional Programme for Arab States is guided by outcomes and solutions outlined in the UNDP Strategic Plan 2022-2025 and is designed to deliver integrated responses to identified challenges in the region. The Regional Programme aims to: a) accelerate the structural transformation of productive capacities in a sustainable and inclusive manner; b) strengthen institutions to promote inclusive participation, prevent conflict and build peaceful societies. The programme includes several initiatives covering several thematic areas, among others anti-corruption and integrity, digital transformation, artificial intelligence, insider mediation, data and knowledge for the SDGs, electoral support, youth empowerment, climate resilience, innovative finance, etc. 

7. Coordination & Management Support

The team provides strategic and technical support on the use of corporate tools for programme and project management, including project quality assurance, evaluations, etc.  The team also provides support to designing UN sustainable development cooperation framework (UNSDCF), country programme document (CPD), and development projects. In addition, the team generates analysis of county office results in support of informed and improved programming in the region as part of the overall implementation of the UNDP Strategic Plan. 

8. Operations Management and Support 

The team provides advice on corporate operational strategies, policies and plans. It is responsible for delivering effective and efficient financial, human resources, procurement, administrative and logistical, and ICT services to COs, as well as to the teams in the Hub in line with UNDP rules and regulations. 

9. Partnerships and Communications 

The team advises on partnerships and fund raising from governments, private entities, development banks, and foundations to deliver on the vision and outcomes in UNDP’s Strategic Plan and promote sustainable development. It provides partner intelligence and analysis on alignment between donor development mandates and UNDP priority thematic areas of work and facilitates partnership agreements.  The team advises Country Offices and the Regional Programme on their Partnership and Communication Strategies and Action Plans. 

The team also provides advice and technical support on strategic means to raise the visibility of RBAS work and results to promote greater understanding of UNDP key development endeavors. Support includes development of communication and media strategies; branding; reputation management; media outreach and development activities; production support to a wide range of communication products (print, audio-visual and online); managing online presence and maintaining new media platforms.

Duties and Responsibilities

While specified TOR will be based on the selection of the cluster/team, the tasks to be performed by the intern fall under one or more of the following categories as per the requirements/needs of each cluster/team: 

Policy and Strategy Advice and Development:

• Prepare policy briefs, sector scan, status papers on development challenges based on desk review studies and analysis for evidence-based advocacy and policy development in the relevant field.;
• Assist in the development of new or ongoing initiatives, including review of policy literature in respect to the subject to enhance UNDP programming in the relevant field within the Arab Region;
• Document good practices, cases studies, innovations and pilot models for wider dissemination and sharing;
• Prepare Report/Note on the role of UNDP’s Programmatic Support in Structural Transformation in Arab States
• Assist in the documentation of the outcome of a number of regional consultations for positioning UNDP in the region.

Project Design, formulation and other project related functions:

• Assist in policy development in relevant area within UNDP in the Arab Region feeding into global policy development;
• Prepare conceptual framework / concept notes on new areas of work or development challenges;
• Assist in the development of technical support in development of new interventions or projects;
• Prepare and review project documents.

Knowledge Management & Communications:

• Prepare knowledge and communication products for advocacy and outreach, related to national, regional and global initiatives within the relevant team;
• Review knowledge and communications products (subject, design and content);
• Disseminate knowledge and communications products;
• Contribute to the preparation of social media content, the drafting of news, interviews and stories for knowledge platform, the development of relevant brochures, videos and infographics;
• Contribute to the development of press releases for printed and online media outlets, especially on the occasion of regional projects’ activities and events;
• Draft or support drafting of blog posts and other externally-facing pieces on emerging trends in relevant field;
• Capture stories which reflect on know how (procedures, processes, tactics) and know why (lessons learned, reasons for failures/success);
• Monitor any social media feedback regarding UNDP events/conferences in the region
• Undertake regular website updates.

Research and Data Management:

• Undertake research on relevant initiatives in areas of interest;
• Conduct data collection and analyze data collected;
• Conduct desk reviews of existing research and literature on specific areas;
• Develop a repository of certain/specific initiatives from the region, with supporting resources such as presentations, press releases, blogs, etc;
• Manage files and online database of related documents in a structured way.

Operations Support:

• Provide administrative and logistical support;
• Support organization of workshops, conferences and retreats in coordination with other staff; support for international participants’ travel and logistics matters;
• Organize travel arrangements, and support administration of supply and assets management.  
• Collection of information for DSA, travel agencies and other administrative surveys;
• Support preparation of specific budgets, financial and accounting documents, and documentation for audit;
• Support to organization of procurement processes including preparation of RFQs, ITBs or RFPs documents, receipt of quotations, bids or proposals, their preliminary evaluation;
• Development of electronic template and applications to facilitate automation of operations processes;
• Provide ICT and HR support services. 

Competencies:

Functional Competencies:

• Strong sense of collaborative work, excellent communication and interpersonal skills;
• Keen attention to detail;
• Proven record of interest and work in the development field;
• Excellent analytical and research skills;
• Research experience;
• Interest in the Arab States region and possibly some background in researching the region.

Core Competencies:

Professionalism:

• Demonstrated problem-solving skills and judgment in applying technical expertise to resolve a wide range of complex issues/problems;
• Ability to negotiate and to influence others to reach agreement;
• Ability to work under pressure.

Communication:

• Speaks and writes clearly, concisely and effectively;
• Listens to others, correctly interprets messages from others and responds appropriately;

Teamwork:

• Works collaboratively with colleagues to achieve organizational goals; solicits input by genuinely valuing others’ ideas and expertise;
• Is willing to learn from others; places team agenda before personal agenda;
• Supports and acts in accordance with final group decision, even when such decisions may not entirely reflect own position.

Planning & Organizing:

• Develops clear goals that are consistent with agreed strategies;
• Identifies priority activities and assignments; adjusts priorities as required;
• Allocates appropriate amount of time and resource for completing work.

Accountability:

• Takes ownership of all responsibilities and honor commitments;
• Delivers outputs for which one has responsibility within prescribed time, cost and quality standards;
• Operates in compliance with organizational regulations and rules;
• Supports subordinates, provide oversight and take responsibility for delegated assignments;
• Takes personal responsibility for his/her own shortcomings and those of the work unit, where applicable.
   

Required Skills and Experience 
 
Education:

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

1. Be enrolled in a postgraduate degree programme (such as a master’s programme, or higher);
2. Be enrolled in the final academic year of a first university degree programme (such as bachelor’s degree or equivalent);
3. Have recently graduated with a university degree (as defined in (a) and (b) above) and, if selected, must start the internship within one-year of graduation;
4. Be enrolled in a postgraduate professional traineeship program and undertake the internship as part of this program.

Experience:

• Excellent communication skills; Ability to write clearly and concisely;
• Initiative, sound judgment and demonstrated ability to work harmoniously with staff members of different national and cultural backgrounds;
• Good command of information and communication technology;
• Some knowledge of the Arab region would be helpful.

Languages:

• Fluency in English (both oral and written) is required. Arabic and French language skills would be an asset.

Disclaimer
Important information for US Permanent Residents ('Green Card' holders) 
Under US immigration law, acceptance of a staff position with UNDP, an international organization, may have significant implications for US Permanent Residents. UNDP advises applicants for all professional level posts that they must relinquish their US Permanent Resident status and accept a G-4 visa, or have submitted a valid application for US citizenship prior to comme