SayPro Internshipship with the Peace Responsiveness team

Reporting to: Programme Manager, Peace Responsiveness ; and closely collaborates with the Policy Officer and other members of the team

Location: Geneva, Switzerland

Application closing: 13 May, 2022

Duration: 6 months, full time

Stipend: A stipend is offered throughout the internship period

Interpeace is an international organization for peacebuilding. With over 25 years of experience, it has implemented a broad range of peacebuilding programmes in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Interpeace was officially recognized as an international entity by the Swiss Federal Council in 2018.

Interpeace tailors its approach to each society and ensures that its work is locally designed and driven. Through local partners and its own local teams, it jointly develops peacebuilding programmes based on extensive consultation and research. Interpeace helps establish processes of change that promote sustainable peace, social cohesion, and resilience. The organization’s work is designed to connect and promote understanding between local communities, civil society, governments, and the international community. Interpeace also assists the international community – especially the United Nations – to play a more effective role in peacebuilding, based on Interpeace’s expertise in field-based work at grassroots level. Interpeace achieves this primarily by contributing innovative thought leadership and fresh insights to contemporary peacebuilding policy. It also assists the international community through ‘peace responsiveness’ work, in which Interpeace provides advice and practical support to other international organizations (especially those in the security, development, and humanitarian aid sectors), enabling them to adapt their work systemically to simultaneously address conflict dynamics and strengthen peace dynamics. Interpeace is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and has offices around the world.

For more information about Interpeace, please visit www.interpeace.org

Specific Background to the Internship

Interpeace’s peace responsiveness work is dedicated to creating and accompanying multi-level change processes in the international aid system. The objective of this work is to support international (UN agencies and INGOs) and regional organisations to contribute more effectively to peace through humanitarian, development and stabilisation interventions.

It does so by strengthening the capacity of individuals, organizations and the humanitarian and development system as a whole to deliberately design for and realize peace-contributing outcomes, support locally led change, and strengthen resilience to conflict and violence. This requires changes at individual, programmatic, organisational and systems level.

Interpeace’s peace responsiveness work builds on already existing policy agendas and concepts such as the Sustaining Peace agenda, the HDP Nexus and conflict sensitivity.

The peace responsiveness workstream comprises six integrated components:

• Bilateral partnerships and accompaniment to advance the operationalisation and institutionalisation of peace responsiveness in UN agencies and other organisations
• Design of joined up programmatic approaches in selected country contexts
• Building the capacities of key individual change agents in the international system through training
• Facilitating cross-organisational exchange and learning among UN and other agencies
• Developing research, evidence and other knowledge products
• Engaging with donors and policy actors

Scope of the internship:

The intern will work as a member of the Peace Responsiveness Team within the Policy, Learning and IPAT Unit and under the supervision of Programme Manager, Peace Responsiveness and in close collaboration with the Policy Officer and other members of the team. The Intern will provide substantive and administrative support to the Peace Responsiveness workstream and gain exposure/knowledge of the peace responsiveness concept and related policy agendas.

His/her supervisor will guide the intern through the internship. This includes:

• Discussing and setting the development objectives for the internship period with the intern
• Providing the resources and support required to meet the requirements and development objectives of the internship
• Issuing an internship certificate providing feedback on the intern’s performance

Specific duties include but are not limited to:

• Conducting research, compiling background material and drafting information synthesis, analysis and inputs on topics related to Interpeace’s Peace Responsiveness work
• Supporting the collection, analysis and compilation of information for project reports
• Supporting the development of project proposals and concept notes
• Helping to organize meetings, events, workshops, and trips as well as take notes and coordinate follow-up
• Taking notes of team meetings and keeping the team’s intranet up-to-date
• Supporting partnerships between Interpeace and other organizations as required
• Assisting the Peace Responsiveness Team and the wider Policy, Learning and IPAT Unit as required

Skills that the intern will develop and knowledge that the intern will acquire:

• An understanding of Interpeace’s work on Peace Responsiveness
• An understanding of the design and delivery of capacity development to organizations and individuals
• An understanding of the design of learning and change processes
• Researching peace, humanitarian, development, and stabilization topics to inform project and learning activities
• Drafting written communication (briefs, letters, e-mails, etc.)
• Drafting input for documents for donors (elements of proposals, reports, etc.)
• Planning and coordination of meetings and events

Requirements:

• A strong desire to learn about sustaining peace while making a worthwhile contribution of time and effort to Interpeace
• Fluency in English (oral and written) required; working knowledge of French desirable
• Knowledge of Microsoft Office package; knowledge of sharepoint and Microsoft Teams desirable
• Being well-organized, paying attention to detail, and being adept to working in a fast-paced dynamic work environment
• Eligible candidates need to be enrolled in University studies and be able to have certification through there university that the internship is part of curriculum.