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UNDP works in about 170 countries and territories supporting partner countries to achieve the eradication of poverty, the reduction of inequalities and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). More specifically, UNDP supports partner countries to develop policies, leadership skills, partnering abilities, institutional capabilities and building resilience to sustain development results.
UNDP’s Regional Service Centre for Africa (RSCA), based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (serving 46 Country Offices in sub-Saharan Africa) develops high quality knowledge and policy products, and is the organisation’s main interface with regional and continental bodies such as the African Union and the Regional Economic Communities.
The RSCA also implements a newly launched, continent-wide Regional Programme supporting Africa’s transformational agenda in the following priority areas, namely:
- Priority 1 – People. African citizens (especially women and youth), in a context of reinvigorated social contracts, have a stronger voice and influence in African Union, regional economic communities and regional mechanisms policymaking and implementation processes.
- Priority 2 – Prosperity. African citizens (especially women and youth) benefit from a regionally integrated, structurally transformed, and inclusive economy.
- Priority 3 – Planet. African citizens (especially women and youth), supported by the African Union and regional economic communities and regional mechanisms, build a resilient Africa.
- Priority 4 – Peace. African citizens (especially women and youth), supported by the African Union and regional economic communities and regional mechanisms, achieve measurable progress towards sustainable peace.
The Regional Programme for Africa is firmly aligned with addressing the multidimensional challenges faced with a strong emphasis on the eradication of poverty and the reduction of inequalities by accelerating the structural transformation of economies from agriculture-based to manufacturing and beyond. Furthermore, increasingly in the evolving aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, a much stronger focus on building resilience to multidimensional shocks is also an important priority in Africa. These priorities are being strongly integrated into the focus areas of the UNDP RSCA Inclusive Growth (IG) Team, which, under priority 2 above, increasingly supports regional development that is inclusive and transformational, but also sustainable and resilient in eradicating poverty and reducing inequalities over time.
More specifically – under the umbrella of the African Agenda 2063 and UN SDGs 2030 – the IG team’s main thrust is to support African countries to align and integrate these global and continental agendas for sustainable development into their respective National Development Plans. Moreover, the UNDP’s Strategic Plan 2022-25, UNDP’s Renewed Strategic Offer for Africa and the Regional Programme for Africa have increasingly demanded that the IG collaborate more robustly within and across other UNDP RSCA thematic teams (e.g. Gender, Youth, Natural Capital and Environment, Private Sector, Governance and Resilience) to generate and deliver a more integrated package of services (that includes integrated policy and programme development, assessments, tools and evidence, and capacity and implementation support) on IG thematic areas (e.g. employment creation (including through MSMEs), informality, social protection, structural economic transformation, SDG integration and regional trade in the context of AfCFTA). In addition to its role as the provider of advisory services to partner countries, the IG Team continues to implement regional initiatives through the Regional Programme for Africa.
Against this background, the IG team is currently looking to recruit 3 interns to support the work of the IG Team along the following overarching thematic areas, and offers each intern a chance for deeper investigation in one of the three following areas:
- Informal Micro Small Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and their potential role in Regional Trade in the context of African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA): This internship will allow the select candidate to support specific research requirements of the IG team on the nexus between informal MSMEs and regional African trade, as will be defined in the on-boarding stage. The idea would be to do specific research, generate data and evidence as well as identify entry points for how to improve the potential for informal MSMEs to play a larger role in regional trade (in the context of AfCFTA).
- Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Integration and Acceleration: These 2 internships will allow the select candidates to work together under the overarching theme of enabling Member States to integrate the SDGs and related international and regional commitments into their relevant plans, budgets and statistics to accelerate progress. The work will likely entail a mapping of Development Plan indicators to the SDGs indicators, and Budget objectives to the SDG targets, and analyze synergies and trade-offs within and across countries. It will also likely involve directly engaging and working with the Africa Union, the Regional Economic Communities and Countries from time to time.
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