Week eleven, I’m in heaven…

Yes, I just chose that title because it rhymes.

I can’t believe it is already the last week of my internship here at ECLAC in Trinidad and Tobago. Next Monday I leave to take a quick trip home to the Bahamas before I make my way back to Colorado for my last year (*sniff*) of my Masters program at Korbel.

These last two weeks in particular have been moving very quickly at the office, as assignment after assignment has come rolling in. It would not be an exaggeration to say that my fellow intern and I at the Economic Development Unit have very much been treated as members of the office…. that is, we have essentially been doing the work of real staff members, with all the pressures and deadlines that go with it. Ultimately I think it had a lot to do with shortages of ACTUAL staff…but it certainly gave us an opportunity to be exposed to the work of the unit* (see below for further comments).

For example, over the last two days, I have prepared part of a presentation for the Director of our unit, the Economic Development Unit, to make at the 34th Session of ECLAC in San Salvador at the end of the month, where ECLAC will launch its major new publication, “Structural Change for Equality”, as well as speaking notes on the Bahamian and Barbadian economies in 2012 for the Executive Secretary (basically the head honcho) of ECLAC itself, Chile-based Alicia Barcena.

Meanwhile, I have been trying to find time to finish my own presentation which I will make at the end of the week to the entire ECLAC Port of Spain office on some of the work I have done while I’ve been interning, some reflections and recommendations.

To give you an idea of some of the other tasks I will be mentioning during that presentation, here’s a few:

+ Researching policies implemented by Caribbean governments in 2011 that could be said to be ongoing responses to the financial crisis and global economic downturn that began in 2008, which will be included as an appendix to the Economic Survey 2011 document published by ECLAC Port of Spain

+ Collecting and analysing trade data from the UN Comtrade database to try to identify some trends and points of interest which could form a part of a new study on trade in the Caribbean which is to be put together by the unit in the coming year

+ Writing two articles for UN magazine, FOCUS, on Caribbean economic trends in 2012 and Social Protection challenges and solutions in the region

+ Researching and writing on the subject of disunity in Caricom in 2012, for the “Paninsal” publication produced by ECLAC’s Santiago office

+ Conducting a literature review of recent trade literature relating to the Caribbean and trade theory in general

+ Attending seminars and conferences, including everything from a seminar on Caribbean development held at the Port of Spain office, to a speech given by Chinese prime minister Wen Jia Bao on Latin American-Chinese relations.

And that’s not even half of it.

If you are thinking about interning with the UN, or ECLAC in particular, feel free to comment with any questions.

To finish up, here’s some photos….two of my hilariously windowless and blank-walled office…and one of myself and my lovely fellow EDU members:

* It also gives more pause to think about the fact that the UN does not pay its interns when it seems that they are not only getting a work experience but filling for official staff due to the shortages created by the current hiring system, which is in need of reform (see previous post). The fact that it does not do so, or indeed, does not even provide a stipend of some kind to cover basic expenses, is something that I feel I have a responsibility to point out whenever possible having been able to gain first hand experience of the fact that interns do *real* work and having considered the fact that by providing no financial support whatsoever to people essentially working for it for extended periods of time, it seems to go against the type of basic principles the UN stands for. That is not to say that in many other ways individual staff at ECLAC have, in the ways that they can, been very considerate and supportive of us as interns, and even expressed their own conviction that the lack of stipend is unfair.

Bahamas goes GOLD!

As a proud Bahamian, it would be remiss of me not to brag about my little country of 350,000 people’s recent historic win in the Men’s 4 x 400 relay final at the Olympics on Friday. Half of the office at ECLAC was in our conference room glued to the TV screaming on Trinidad and Tobago (who got a bronze) and The Bahamas at 4.20pm that afternoon! Awesome way to end the week.

The Bahamas has typically punched above its weight at the Olympics, winning the most medals per capita in 4 out of the last 5 Olympics (OK, just 1 or 2 medals in each case, but still…. not bad for a country which is smaller than most neighbourhoods in any major city!).

This time around, we achieved some great feats – getting the first Bahamian swimming finalist in Arianna Vanderpool Wallace’s 50m Freestyle Final and reaching the final in several other sports, but it wasn’t until we stormed passed the US in the last leg of the 4 x 400 to relieve them of a gold they have won in every Olympics since 1984 that we could be sure we weren’t going home empty handed! The relay team of Chris Brown, Demetrius Pinder, Michael Mathieu and Ramon Miller pulled out the incredible win to come in .33 seconds ahead of the US team and a full couple of seconds ahead bronze place winners Trinidad and Tobago to get the gold.

Congrats Team BAH! But also congratulations to Trinidad and Tobago, JAMAICA (The cry in Jamaica being “ONE, TWO, THREE!” when Usain Bolt, Yohann Blake and Warren Weir took 1st, 2nd and 3rd place for Jamaica in the incredible 200 metre final, following Bolt’s own world record breaking win in the 100m sprint), and ofcourse Kirani James of tiny little Grenada for winning that country’s FIRST EVER Olympic Medal – a GOLD in the 400m sprint final!

The Caribbean has been proving it can beat the best this year. As someone for whom the question of how The Caribbean can regain and improve its competitiveness in a global environment is an academic and potentially and future professional concern…seeing the region prove its ability to do so in the sports arena is somehow a great encouragement. It shows that with the right investments, Caribbean people can be the best in the world. Friday’s race and the screams of the ECLAC office staff – who hail from all parts of the Caribbean – suggested to me that that sports are one of the few areas which have the ability to totally unite Caribbean people. All anyone wanted was for a Caribbean person to win, whether it be The Bahamas, Trinidad or Cuba! (all the Caribbean countries represented in the race).

With the type of performances the Bahamas has shown in this and previous Games I hope that The Bahamas’ government sees the benefit of investing in sports in the Bahamas, and doing so in a way that gets young Bahamians in general keen to participate and compete. In this regard, I think we have to take tips from Jamaica who have proven to be the champions of sprint training regimes! However, it’s important we don’t just think about sprinting when we think sports. One of the things I have been really impressed by in Trinidad and Tobago is the amount of sports activity going on in the country, with Trinbagonians young and old. Every day I walk around the Savannah on my way home from work and see amateur teams enjoying a game of rugby, football, cricket and even martial arts. On Saturdays and Sundays teams can be seen flying up and down pitches all around Trinidad in the intense humidity and heat. Thinking about why it might be that we don’t see this so much in The Bahamas, I’m concerned it’s got a lot to do with a lack of open spaces, but I’m sure there’s a role to play for schools too. And of course there’s a virtuous cycle effect, where the more young people see sports as a part of their daily lives and those of the people around them, the more they will try to be involved. We need to do more to encourage this in The Bahamas.

So…….Go BAHAMAS!

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TT minus-9 weeks

Just under one month to go at my internship with the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, and I thought I would give some idea of a few things I have learnt, and a few that I have done (in no particular order). Perhaps food for thought for anyone thinking of applying for an internship or job with a UN agency, or perhaps not…:

* I’m really happy with my decision to come to the Caribbean sub-regional headquarters of ECLAC, as opposed to the Washington DC office, as it has fulfilled my expectations in terms of being an opportunity to learn more about the region, its development status and challenges. In this sense, I would recommend to anyone who has a particular regional focus to apply to UN agency offices in that region/country. It may well be the case that by being more “specific” with your applications in this sense you stand a higher chance of being selected too (on my part I am fairly sure that they fact I had a background in the Caribbean, an interest in the region and in trade in particular – a focus of the UN ECLAC Economic Development Unit – was a key factor in my selection for the internship).

* Based on my experience it seems that interns at the UN definitely have the chance to take on some quite substantive work. This is both, I think, an example of how the organisation does intend to make the internships they offer a useful career experience for interns, and also a symptom of some of the human resource shortfalls mentioned below. In most cases I have definitely felt like I was doing work that was “necessary”. This has included data collection, analysis and organisation; writing articles for the UN ECLAC newsletter, “Focus” on Caribbean economic trends in 2012 and a recent Caribbean Roundtable Meeting; compiling information on Caribbean government’s ongoing policy responses to the global downturn; figuring out how to use (very unwieldy) trade databases like UN-WITS and UN Comtrade; compiling a literature review covering major recent academic papers on trade.

* It can take a really long time to get hired at the UN. As such, the organisation can suffer from human resources shortfalls. Many people I met said it took them over a year in some cases to hear that they had secured a position they had applied for! This is a source of frustration for those in the system too, as they often have to take on a workload much greater than that which they anticipated when colleagues leave and vacancies go unfilled for long periods of time. To compound the situation, if you join the UN on a temporary basis and prove yourself very capable of filling the position long term, the particular unit or agency cannot hire you to fill the post permanently as there is a rule against someone in a temporary position taking on the post full time. The UN has apparently pledged to reform the hiring process.

* If you see a job advertised at the UN and it says a certain number of years experience are required, this may not be a hard and fast rule. This I discovered after finding that some of those I work with were hired with much less experience than their job descriptions suggested and proved themselves quite capable of doing the job.

* Many UN workers enter the organisation through the Young Professionals Programme. This programme requires participants to apply to take an exam, which it will then use your performance in to determine whether it will offer you a post within the UN. Each year citizens of certain countries are eligible to apply (the UN trying to keep its employee body diverse, but also awarding a certain number of slots to particular countries based on their financial contributions to the UN). Once you are a member of one of the participating/eligible countries, you must be under 32 years of age, speak either english or french fluently and hold at least an undergraduate level university degree. If you pass the exam, you get placed on a roster which is circulated among all UN offices and agencies around the world. P2 level positions within the entire UN are reserved for people who are on this roster, and so if a position comes up anywhere you could be called and interviewed for that post if you have passed the exam. Exams this year can be taken in Architecture, Economic Affairs, Political Affairs, Social Affairs, Radio Producer and Information Systems and Technology. If offered a job, successful candidates can select a country or countries they would prefer to work in, but ultimately the UN decides based on where needs exist to met. You have to work in two different duty stations (different countries) and in two different functions in your first year of service. You may be offered a job related to the area in which you took the exam, or you may not. Check out a sample exam if you think you might be interested. The deadline for this year is in September. At UN ECLAC in Port of Spain we have a few Young Professionals. One is a Honduran about to set off to Thailand for her second posting, and anoother is a Japanese YPP who was placed in Port of Spain as his first duty station. We also had a programme coordinator from Germany who entered via the YPP programme, who has just been reposted to New York. From what I’ve been told, you can it can take up to a year to find out if you have even passed the exam, and then further waiting is required before any interviews will take place for postings (with this being dependent on you being picked up off the roster by someone in one of the UN offices to which it is circulated)- so don’t hold your breath while you wait! One of the YPs I spoke to said he had made his way onto the executive board of a major German retail firm by the time he heard back from the YPP after applying following his graduation…but gave it all up to go to the UN!

* Weekly meetings have been some of the most helpful parts of the work experience. This is when we come together as members of the Economic Development Unit to talk about what we have achieved that week, what new work priorities may have arisen, and what we intend to achieve in the short to medium term. In these meetings I’ve felt as though myself and my fellow intern have certainly been treated as real team members and our comments, suggestions and needs have been taken into consideration in a way that went beyond my expectations.

* Much of the work produced on behalf of the UN is the work of consultants who are contracted by the organisation for a specific project or period of time. Such individuals seem to be selected based on their particular research interests, ability to write clearly and concisely, and previous acquaintance with the organisation on some basis or other. So, for example, two Caribbean academics were recently contracted by ECLAC-POS in order to produce papers with recommendations on policies to boost Caribbean growth and competitiveness, following the provision of a grant to pay for their work by the French Development Agency via the UN for this purpose. Based on my understanding, it seems that many people feel that this is one of the best ways to engage with the UN, as you have the most “freedom” and are more highly remunerated for your work than salaried employees.

* There’s several categories of UN workers. “Professional and higher category” staff, “General Service” staff, “National Professional Officers” and “Field Service” staff. Each category will recruit staff at various “levels” depending on your qualifications and experience, and some will be recruited internationally (professional category) while others will be sought locally (general service). You can actually find out exactly how much you (or anyone you work with) would get paid at each level / category / duty station and with each additional year or years worth of experience via the UN websites, which I find a great exercise in transparency on the UN’s behalf. As someone within the UN system you can definitely find out about new UN job postings very easily, and some are only advertised internally initially. Therefore there seems to be a definite bias towards job openings favouring those already in the system. Every few days in my UN inbox I get notifications of new job postings all over the world.

* UN research and policy work is definitely an “office job” where you will spend most of your time in a room in front of a computer. You have to have a certain level of self-motivation and the ability to put your head down and get on with things to enjoy and succeed in these types of positions. Also to be able to adapt to changing priorities, as new requests for particular items of work to be produced at short notice may arise at any time, requiring you to drop everything and start on something new.

* There is somewhat of a tension at UN ECLAC between doing “monitoring” type work and/or “theorizing”. Monitoring basically involves collecting data on economic developments, such as growth, unemployment rates, deficts and debts, monetary policy, credit expansion, inflation and any other indicators of economic health to record and allow for comparisons, both between countries and of particular countries at different periods of time. This type of monitoring done by UN ECLAC is very thorough and filters into a lot of academic and journalistic work worldwide, particularly, it seems, since the global downturn and the effect it has had on Caribbean economies. Theorising is what ECLAC has made a name for itself doing since its foundation in 1948, coming up with original answers to the question of how to advance Latin American and Caribbean development that provided a counter-weight to those coming from places such as the US and US-based institutions like the World Bank and IMF with their “Washington Consensus”. Its first appointed Director, economist Raul Prebisch, turned ECLAC into a launch pad for “structuralism” and its related ideas of “inward development”, import-substitution industrialisation and regional integration. Today ECLAC is focusing on issues of growth and inequality and the question of how you can achieve the former while addressing the latter, emphasizing the need for structural change in the production structures of regional economies and placing continued focus on the inevitability of integration as a path to global competitiveness for the Caribbean even as the World Bank and other institutions are moving away from this route as a means of advancement for the Caribbean in particular. But the amount of this kind of “original” work that the agency can do is limited by the quantity of “monitoring” that it does, combined with the human resource constraint that arises from vacancies going unfilled for significant periods of time. I hope that going forward UN ECLAC can continue to find the time and resources to provide the theoretical counterweight that it has throughout its history.

Well that’s it for my UN thoughts for the day. Any questions you might have, just leave a comment. I leave you with photos of Trinidad and Tobago from my weekend trip to Tobago: