Abiemar, Master of Arts in Economics
UNDP Cambodia
Socioeconomic Team, Policy and Innovation Hub
Junior Professional Intern - Social Protection Policy
Good things never last, they say, as the internship period is almost over, so a retrospective is in order.
While covid-19 has claimed many lives worldwide, it has also accelerated, popularized and created a number of opportunities, including distance learning. These opportunities have existed for a long time, but have now been brought to the fore by this pandemic. My remote internship was a complete success, from an academic, organizational and human point of view. My thanks to all the supervisors at UNAC, Uottawa and Pnud Cambodge. I benefited from exceptional follow-up, learned exceptional knowledge, developed valuable skills and met warm people. Working at Pnud, one of the branches of the United Nations, was a dream come true.
To talk about this internship is also to talk about coping with the stress of discovering a new work context, meeting other cultures, working on voluminous assignments for which we sometimes had no idea, managing sleep for late-night zoom conferences, and sometimes the loneliness of working in a large organization. There have been immense challenges along the way, but the support of the people around us and the will to succeed have given us such a leitmotiv to push on to the end.
In terms of skills learned, I learned how to set up projects, how to use the stata software to manage and estimate databases. My understanding of the project development process has become clearer, and my judgement and assessment of existing projects, such as appropriate socio-economic responses to the consequences of covid-19 and the role of women in covering primary needs, have been refined. I've also acquired an astute grasp of intercultural interactions. So I've accumulated enough skills to open up a fairly wide range of positions for me to apply for in many organizations.
I'd like to end by expressing my deepest thanks for the dynamism of my supervisor at Pnud Cambodia, who acted as a good coach during these 12 weeks. He played a pivotal role in introducing me to his team, creating a human working atmosphere and investing 100% of his time and enthusiasm in his role over and above his daily work tasks. My 12-week internship was a captivating and motivating experience of learning, sharing and discovery.