UNDP-China Internship Report
for Peace & Development Foundation
by HU Lifen
I always recall the days and times when I was in the UNDP-China intern period. It was rewarding and fruitful which may enrich my whole life.
I worked in China-Africa Business Council (CABC) which is one of the UNDP programs. CABC office is located in Guanganmen instead of UNDP Compound.
Before I went to Beijing, I have already known the difficulty of my task. Assist in research and compilation of a guidebook for Chinese enterprises in African countries on investment environment and social responsibilities, including preparation of background materials on best practice in corporate governance.
However, when I launched my job, I was told that it was only me individually to accomplish reports about investment environment and CSR. To be honest, I was shocked! It was not assistant it was individual! Too wide scope without any more guidance.
Later I had to start the information and data research.
Firstly, it was of most importance that what logic and structure of thinking my reports would be. Eventually, through the discussion with my supervisor Ms. Zhang Li and other colleagues, I decided that there would be two reports, one is investment environment, and another is CSR. All covering the 6 core UN African countries: Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria and Tanzania,
For investment environment, I surfed on the Chinese, American and African related government websites for reference collection and compilation. Meanwhile, I edited more Chinese perspectives in it because it was the Chinese enterprises investing in African countries.
For CSR report, I structured it as the following main 5 parts: the selected interviewing Chinese enterprises brief introduction; responsibility for stakeholders; responsibility for wider community; responsibility for resources & environment as well as the summary. Actually, in the middle phase of writing, I had to change my original logic and structure of thinking which was “Issues + successful Chinese cases (1 issue may match varied company’s cases) “ due to the restriction and limitation of collecting real cases from the establishing Chinese enterprises investing African countries. And I found another two structures of thinking for CSR report writing.
Before I went back to Hong Kong, for my colleagues I wrote a letter which concerned about the logics and structures of thinking for writing my reports, which I think that the CSR research should be done more in the future. Because I discovered that there are much more contents can be developed. But my time was up.
I appreciate for my supervisor Ms. Zhang Li whom provided me the CSR references for my report writing. She also asked other colleagues to offer the CSR references as much as they can for me. Also I thank for Mr. Adam for editing and polishing my two reports. Consequently, I feel grateful to those people who have helped me throughout the whole internship. Of course, it includes the recommendation from my university.
I cherished very much the UNDP intern in Beijing office. This intern experience exposed me to the international organization operation mechanism and I also make some new friends not only the UNDP and CABC colleagues and fellow interns but also some other Chinese prestigious entrepreneurs whom successfully invested in African countries already. Through the conversations with the entrepreneurs I always can match their management experience with my MBA knowledge. It really excited and inspired me!
At last, my thankfulness will go to PDF, which provides all fees for my intern accommodation and round-trip airplane tickets.
