Project

Today is the last day of my summer internship in the UNDP-China Beijing Office. Looking back, I found the past seven weeks exciting, challenging and fruitful. I regard this internship as a rewarding experience and more importantly a definitive positive step toward my career goals. Consequently, I feel grateful to those people who have helped me throughout the whole internship.

During my intern, I was given substantial duties and tasks in project management with the Social and Economic Development Team. The major issues that the team deals with including poverty alleviation and rural development are also of my personal concerns. After an initial period of adaptation, I was assigned to specifically to focus on the Rural Social Security Research Project. We invite two research institutes to conduct a policy study on the rural social security and health care systems in rural China. Thanks to Ms. Zhou Meixiang’s encouraging and helpful supervision, I was able to participate in every step of project formulation and implementation including drafting project documents and inter-office memos, going through all the internal procurement and financial procedures, discussing details of research proposal with invited research institutes and interviewing with various ministries. Additionally, I was also involved in other daily work supporting the operation of the whole team.

This working experience exposed me to the operating mechanism of the UNDP-China Office. It enhanced my understanding about how UNDP manages project though direct participation. I may still not be able to offer perfect answers to broad questions like where UNDP can fit into the development of China through its projects, how UNDP enforces the project implementation, and how UNDP handles its relationship with other institutional actors. Nevertheless, I now have gained some clues. I have grasped some general ideas about all the necessary steps in running a UNDP project and the purposes and contents of each phase. More specifically, I learned the specific procedures of running UNDP projects in China and its interaction with its partners, as well as the central and local governments in China. I believe that all these basic and practical knowledge will be beneficial to my own career endeavor.

In addition to the practical experience in putting my knowledge into real work, I cherish all the learning opportunities provided at UNDP-China. During my internship, I was able to attend several workshops and briefings introducing new initiatives and programs of UNDP, and awareness training in issues like HIV/AIDS from which I was very well informed about the subjects talked about. More importantly, through daily conversations with specialists from different teams, I was able to gain more insights about the institutional designs of UNDP and its China Office, as well as the specific projects that are going on in China. In this sense, the internship is an important learning process to enrich my knowledge about UN and the human-oriented issues that UN cares the most.

Most profoundly, the internship reconfirmed my perception of the role multi-lateral agencies play in China’s development and make me more committed to the development work in China and other countries. It exposed me to the professional world in the development field and its duties, constraints and opportunities. After my internship, I am going to start my graduate study in international development. I now have a deeper understanding about the most important knowledge and skills I need to develop in order to prepare for a perspective career in international development including knowledge in development economics, strong writing skills, and sense of management etc. This understanding will guide my graduate study in the coming year and help me build up my perspective career.

All in all, this internship was a very enjoyable and rewarding experience. Most aspects of the job were highly positive, even though I did become frustrated occasionally by the internal complicated (sometimes unnecessary) procedures I need to follow in running the project. Democracy and transparency are understandably the key features of UN. Nevertheless, in daily practical work, a better and more flexible formula needs to be formulated in order to be more efficient and more adaptive to the local conditions of country offices.

In the end, there are a number of people toward whom I would like to express my gratefulness. I would like to thank UNDP-China, the Senior Management Team, for offering me such a great opportunity to have some unique, first-hand experience of the workings of UNDP in China. My supervisors and all fellow mates in the Social and Economic Development Team offered me invaluable guidance, suggestions and encouragement throughout the whole internship from which I benefited immensely. My colleagues and fellow interns in UNDP and UNIFEM helped me greatly in settling down when I first came and treated me very nicely during the whole internship. They have created such a very pleasant working environment for my internship. Without them, the past seven weeks would not have been so enjoyable. My deep gratitude finally goes to the Hong Kong Peace and Development Foundation, Ms. Kathy Chiu, Mr. Daniel Fung, Mr. Charles Brown, Ms. Josie Zhou and others. Without their efforts, the internship would not even become possible.