NOHA internship coordinator: Elena Herman Name of the internship organisation: ACTED

AN INTERNSHIP WITH ACTED IN HAITI August – December 2015

Name: Marion Mouton

Home university: University of Groningen, the Netherlands Host University: Aix Marseille University, France

NOHA internship coordinator: Elena Herman Name of the internship organisation: ACTED

Address: 9 rue Mont Joli, Turgeau, Port au Prince, Haiti Telephone number: +509 48 90 82 09

Name of your supervisor at the internship organisation: Charlotte Pfinder (Project Development Manager) and Emilie Bernard (Country Director)

@ACTED

Table of Contents

1. Introduction ... 3

2. ACTED’s structure and goals ... 4

3. Tasks & Activities @ ACTED ... 5

a. Project Development ... 5

b. Advocacy ... 8

c. Reporting ... 10

d. Coordination ... 11

e. Communication & Advocacy ... 11

4. Supervision ... 12

5. Living conditions ... 12

6. Conclusion ... 13

a. Intrinsic and personal learning effects ... 13

b. Expectations, Difficulties & Problems ... 13

c. SWOT analysis of the internship and organisation ... 13

d. Analysis of the function of the internship as part of the NOHA master ... 15

e. Assessment for the positioning on the job market ... 15

1. Introduction

The opportunity to apply for an internship with ACTED was well thought through as I had already applied in 2013 without being successful. I was particularly interested in this organisation because they work in both emergencies and development contexts in countries I have a specific interest for (i.e.

particularly the Middle East) and intervene in very different sectors (i.e. camp management, WASH, food security etc.). Starting with the second biggest French NGO offered the opportunity to discover different sectors of intervention and build on the previous project management experience I acquired when I was working with the EU Delegation in Jerusalem. In addition, I have a few friends who started as interns/volunteers with ACTED and had told me that this organisation gives you many responsibilities with the objective to hire you following the volunteering period. Therefore my expectations towards this internship were mainly to be given responsibilities and to be able to work autonomously in a development/emergency environment. To start with, I applied for Mali as I had experience in African settings although I was also particularly interested with the Middle East. I followed the regular process and sent my application for a Project Development Intern (PDI) position in Mali (CV + Cover Letter + 3 Reference Letters). ACTED’s Human Resources Manager contacted me less than 24 hours afterwards to arrange a first interview and asked me if I was also interested in moving to Haiti. As my response was positive, we proceeded with the first interview, which mainly consisted in explaining my core motivations for the position and how my professional and personal experiences fitted the position. After this first round, I was offered to take a written test. The test was mainly about reporting. After being given a crisis context (i.e. the earthquake in Haiti), the first task was to fill in a reporting table summarizing the principal and specific objectives of a project, as well as the beneficiaries, length of the project etc. in a very succinct manner. The second task was to give a brief project synopsis (benefits and achievements of the project, change in the project operating environment, changes in the humanitarian situation, coordination amongst humanitarian organisation and lesson learnt). I had 90 minutes to complete this test and send it back to the HQ. After completing the test, I had a final round of interview, which lasted for about 2 to 3 hours with three persons: the Human Resources Manager, the Grant Manager and Haiti Country Director. This last round of interview was very technical as they asked very specific project management questions (i.e. what is a project cycle? What are the different components of a log frame?

What are the coordination mechanisms in times of emergencies?), but also broader questions (i.e. what

behaviour to adopt in case of corruption? etc.) or about the context (i.e. is Haiti still in an emergency

phase, rehabilitation or development phase? etc.). All the interviews were done over Skype, which was

for me more stressful than a face-to-face interview. Finally, I had a conversation with the Haiti Country

Director and she convinced me that it would be a very good opportunity for me. The day after the

interview they formulated an official volunteering position offer with a hiring promise, which I accepted.

After that, we proceeded to the administrative process as ACTED provides its volunteers with a benefit package, which include: a return plane ticket, life insurance, housing, living allowance (300$ per month min.), and baggage allowance (50kg). I had to provide quite a few documents but in the end it felt reassuring to be taken care of. All the new staff also had to attend a 4 days training at ACTED headquarters in Paris. The training was meant to provide an insight on ACTED’s work and mandate.

Therefore, we followed many different seminars ranging from project management to finance and logistics. During this session, we were around 12 people from very different horizons (nationalities, background experience etc.) starting with various positions (i.e. camp manager, security manager, finance intern, logistics officer etc.) in different countries (Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Haiti, South Sudan, Jordan etc.). This session allowed me to become more familiar with the headquarter work and to get to know one another although we would then be dispatched over the world. Each department from which you are connected also gives you a briefing about the specific tasks you will be undertaking, explaining the major procedures and giving you the materials you need (i.e. for me the Project Development Intern package).

2. ACTED’s structure and goals

As previously mentioned, the training gave us the opportunity to learn more about ACTED. ACTED, the second biggest French NGO, is an apolitical, and non-confessional international relief agency created in Afghanistan in 1993. Today, ACTED implements more than 450 projects a year towards 8 million beneficiaries in 35 countries, with a budget of 160 million euros, employing over 400 international staff and 4300 national staff. ACTED team’s supports vulnerable communities throughout the world and accompany them in building a better future by providing a response adapted to specific needs. They provide aid to populations affected by crisis using an approach that is both local and global, multidisciplinary and adapted to each context. By ensuring the link between Emergency, Rehabilitation and Development, ACTED team’s guaranty that interventions made in a situation of crisis are useful and sustainable, because only long term support – by remaining in the area post emergency and involving communities – can end the poverty cycle and accompany populations on the road to development.

Unlike other humanitarian organisations, ACTED has a much decentralised management which means

that each mission has a lot of decision power and autonomy. Hence, the relationship with headquarters

remains quite distant and the support we get, in the project development department, is mainly related to

project proposals and final reports submissions.

3. Tasks & Activities @ ACTED

As previously mentioned, I had not specifically studied the case of Haiti during the course of my studies and was therefore quite unfamiliar with the context. In the framework of my tasks, which were related to project management, it was of utmost importance to become familiar with the Haitian environment more specifically on the sectors I was going to tackle in my work. The “mainstream” tasks that were given to me in my job description were the following:

1. Ensuring reporting from in a timely and quality manner. Standard ACTED reporting tools will be used but the PDI is also expected to liaise with programme and project managers, the monitoring and evaluation department, other departments within ACTED, and possible other actors to ensure all data provided is accurate and

comprehensive.

2. Assist the project development officer and manager in developing project proposals. The PDI will gather information from field teams, which feeds into the proposal.

3. Drafting internal and external communication that involves the base. This includes minute taking at meetings, gathering flash news and writing success stories for the ACTED website, development of ACTED fact sheets in preparation of donor visits, and addressing ad hoc donor requests as assigned by the PDO (Project Development Officer) or PDM (Project Development Manager).

4. Ad hoc tasks as assigned by PDM or AC such as but not limited to updating the server, filing, writing research reports, drafting memo’s, and/ or making presentations.

However, most of my job consisted in developing new projects and, to a lesser extent, manage advocacy work and communication.

a. Project Development

Protecting Migrants’ rights / Europe Aid

When I first arrived, I was welcomed by the Port au Prince team, which is composed of around 50 staff, mostly programs, and 6 expatriates’ staff. I was straightaway provided with a desk and a laptop. At the start, I was directly managed by the Country Director, Emilie Bernard, who has an extensive experience in project management. My ‘main’ first task was rather challenging and ambitious and consisted in writing an Europe Aid proposal on the protection of migrant rights. Provided with the call of proposal, I worked with the Audit Intern who was at that time the temporary protection focal point, to conceive the project.

We worked very autonomously. The first step was to set up a working plan with the steps of the project.

It started with research/documentation, looking for partners (it is a bi-national project so we needed one

Haitian and one Dominican partner), organising working sessions (ateliers de travail), developing the log

frame, writing the concept note. The colleague I was working with, Leyla Mutiu, had an extensive

knowledge of the situation and more generally on the topic of Haitian migration in the Caribbean. To me, the first challenge was to fully grasp the context, which was quite complex as it features several judicial Dominican decisions affecting different categories of the Haitian/Dominican population (i.e.

Dominicans citizens from Haitian ascendance who were at risk of becoming stateless, the Haitian born in the Dominican Republic but without identity documents, the recent Haitian migrants without identity documents etc.). Eventually, I managed to understand the main issues of the problem. To do so, I read a lot of articles and books but also met with several people involved/working in this sector such as the Director of the UNHCR in Haiti, OXFAM focal point for migration issues, human rights defenders (from local human rights organisations such as the GARR

or the RNDDH

) etc. Once we started to master both the context and the guidelines of the call, we started meeting with potential partners. During those meeting, my colleague Leyla would introduce the context and I would introduce the guidelines of the call and how to develop a project. We first met with a project coordinator from the GARR, an organization specifically working in defending migrant’s rights. This was the first time I met with partners and it went very well. The coordinator told us that he would formally ask his hierarchy for partnership approval, and that he was highly interested in working with us. However it did not happen as the GARR had a previous formal partnership agreement with another international organization, World Vision. That is when I started understanding that we were actually “competing” with other organizations and that several consortiums will be created to answer this call. It happened again with another local organisation we met. Eventually we found two partners who had an extensive experience in human rights protection and particularly those of migrants. A month prior to the submission we started working together on developing the logic of intervention and activities. During those working sessions, which generally lasted for 3 hours, we would sit down and discuss and identify the main issues in relation to Haitian migration in the Caribbean and particularly in the Dominican Republic. We would then develop activities, within the given timeframe and budget, that would be appropriate to deal with those identified issues. For instance, migrant’s labour rights are often violated as migrants do not have identity documents and are particularly vulnerable to forced labour or underpaid labour. Therefore, it became important to develop awareness campaigns about their labour rights as migrants but also providing them with legal counselling regarding those issues. In addition, we believed that promoting good business practices could also improve migrants working conditions. Based on the experience of one of our partners the project included a bi-national business fair as well as a prize award for good business practice. Although the working sessions were highly helpful, I soon realised that working with partners, so far local, was not as easy as expected. Indeed, as the main applicant of the project proposal, your organisation produces most of the work. After we had done all the working sessions and develop the log frame, it was sent to the

1 Groupe d'Appui aux Rapatriés et Réfugiés

2 Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains

headquarters for reviews and comments. As previously mentioned, the relationship with the headquarters is quite distant as we do not deal with one another on a daily basis but only in case of submissions. We had about a three days exchange on the log frame before I started writing the concept note, so about 10 days prior to submission (which had thankfully been extended for 15 days). In the meantime, my colleague and my Country Director went to the Dominican Republic to meet with local and international organisation there including the EU delegation in the Dominican Republic and UNHCR there. They kept me posted on anything that we could have added up to the project or contextual facts that I could add in the note. At first, the concept note does not seem too difficult to write as it is only 4 pages. However, given the word strict restriction, you must be extremely concise and brief, and that is highly difficult as this project was particularly complex. Writing a concept note for the first time in such a limited time was a big challenge, and was stressful. I wrote most of it on my own but I could not have managed without my colleague’s help and their feedbacks. Once we had finished drafting it, it was sent to the headquarter for review and we started another round of reviews. I quickly understood that we do not have the same way of thinking in the field and in the headquarter. Because the submission was made in Brussels, the headquarter wanted to harmonize the activities to fit in Brussels’ usual requirements (i.e. only one specific objectives, very succinct activities). Whereas in the field, we had in mind to submit an original and ambitious project. Eventually, we managed to find a middle ground between the “harmonized” and the “original” sides. It made me realise that we do not have the same approach in the headquarter and in the field although we do work for the same organization and that good communication is essential to preserve a good working relationship. The amount of work to provide to write the conceptual note was high and I had to work way more than I expected (i.e. weekends and evening). Finally, we did submit the project proposal within the time limit. I learnt a lot from this project, both regarding myself and how the NGO system works. I realised that I could have managed my time and energy better but in the same time felt that I lacked guidance’s on how to proceed. On the other hand, we were very autonomous and were able to develop a project according to our analysis of the context. After the project was submitted, we all sat down to discuss how things went. Having a debriefing is something I believe is extremely important.

It allowed us to identify what went right and what we could have done better. The good relationship we have within the team allowed me to feel very comfortable in expressing myself. Therefore I pointed out different issues such as the sometimes blurry relationship with the headquarter, the relationship with the partners, the difficulties of writing in a very limited timeframe as well as my difficulties to understand how the budget was made.

Project Development planning

I established a Project Development (PD) planning to organise the following submissions to come. On

the agenda, there was several project proposals on different topics: food security (one more focused on

agriculture (Europe Aid), and the other one to respond to the food security crisis exacerbated by the drought (ECHO)), supporting the civil society, water management and local governance (Agence Française de Développement - AFD). As we were two persons working in the project development department (my manager, Charlotte Pfinder, arrived at the beginning of October) I took the lead on the emergency food security and the water management and local governance proposals, which were both full proposals to write. Regarding the first proposals, emergency funds came up through ECHO to respond to the effects of El Nino in the Caribbean, and other parts of the world, where droughts severely affected the population. In Haiti, 38 cities had been classified as being in a food security crises affecting more than 1.000.000 people over a population estimated around 11 million. Prior to the fund becoming available, we had engage in an advocacy work with other NGOs in Haiti through the CCO (Comité de Coordination des Organisations), which is a platform of international NGOs operating in the country.

b. Advocacy

The advocacy work consisted in drafting a document supporting a report written by the CNSA (Conseil National de la Sécurité Alimentaire) in charge of monitoring the food security situation. In order to do so, several NGOs of the CCO came together to draft a supporting document. The first draft document was written by ACF (Action Contre la Faim) but during a meeting it was decided that ACTED would take the lead to finish up drafting the document. I organised a meeting with country directors and/or programme managers to finalise the draft, which was then sent to the CNSA.

Responding to the drought and the food security crisis (ECHO)

A few week after, funds from the EU were made available worldwide to respond to the drought. Very

quickly, a consortium of international NGOs (ACF, ACTED, Concern, OXFAM, and Solidarités

International) was formed to present harmonized projects on different areas of the countries. As

ACTED is well implanted in the South where three cities were in a situation of food security crisis, it was

agreed that we would intervene in this area. In November, I left Port au Prince for a two weeks field

evaluation/assessment in the South. I stayed in Les Cayes where ACTED has a base for its cholera

programmes. Back then, I was not really sure about how to lead an evaluation and unfortunately did not

receive much insight about it. However I proceeded as follow: meeting with all the NGOs operating in

the South in the food security sector, meeting with all relevant local authorities and finally meeting with

the local population in the most vulnerable areas hit by the drought. For every interview/informal

meeting/focus group I had an assessment grid and/or set questions. Within a few days, it allowed me to

collect a great amount of information both on the humanitarian and the operational context. In parallel, discussions were led in the capital where the consortium of NGOs formed was trying to develop a harmonised approach of intervention. The NGOs I met on the field were really keen to share information of their on-going and past projects and it enabled me to map the actors of the area. Most important were the local authorities, which were consulted at every step of the project development. I mainly met with the departmental directors of the CNSA, OSAS

, and of the DDAS

which is the ministry of agriculture. They were able to identify the most vulnerable areas hit by the drought and the mechanisms we should develop to improve the situation. They advocated for a long-term approach and underline the limits of short term programs meant to inject cash to households. We also organised focus groups with my Project Development Manager colleague, Charlotte, as well as two AME (Appraisal, Monitoring and Evaluation) officers. The first one was held in the city of Chardonnières with leaders of the local communities, mainly Community Based Organisations (CBOs) representatives. We were about twelve and started a conversation following a grid of questions. It must be noted that during focus groups there are often a few people monopolising the conversation and it is often hard to involve everyone, especially women who are often a minority. We collected key information about the habits of local people, their coping strategies as well as their opinion about the drought. One of the disturbing thing is that people expect a lot from you, and often think that after such a consultation a project will automatically follow. I led other focus groups with the AME officer and the support of the DDAS, which were very valuable in grasping the context and being able to develop the project. When I came back to Port au Prince, I had almost all the elements in hands to start writing the project keeping in mind that the consortium had already developed a general log frame. I had one week to write the full proposal with the ECHO Single Form which is about 85 pages. I soon realise that I would not be able to write it on my own, especially because some parts are very specific (“programme based”). I dispatched the work among three of my colleagues, including the head of mission. This was one of the most stressful submissions I had because the amount of work required was huge but we managed to do it after a final night of work in order to send the final version to the headquarters so they could approve it. Although it was highly stressful I felt really proud of having completed this work with the team.

Improving long term access to water and strengthening local governance (AFD)

In parallel to this work with the ECHO proposal, I had been involved in the development of another proposal for the AFD (Agence Française de Développement). This project was much different as it was a development project over three years with an integrated approach. In other words, this project, which had first been developed following a critical assessment of the living conditions of the population of

3Observatoire de la Sécurité Alimentaire pour le Sud / Food Security Observatory for the South

4 Direction Départementale de l’Agriculture pour le Sud/Agriculture Departmental Office for the South

Thiotte (South-East), was meant to address the issue of the chronic drought. Access to water in this area has been highly limited for years due to a poor water supply system and a lack of governance over natural resources. The concept note had already been submitted by ACTED and two partners, a local organization and an organization from Martinique, and pre-selected. In the framework of developing this project, I had the opportunity to go to Thiotte several times in order to meet with our local partners and assess the situation. The development of this proposal took more time as a development project must always include and implicate the local authorities and organizations as much as possible in the design and implementation in order to promote local ownership, strengthen capacity building and resilience.

c. Reporting

Weekly Coordination Meeting (WCM)

During all my time at ACTED, I was also in charge of managing the Weekly Coordination Meeting (WCM) held every Monday morning with all the head of department to set up the priority of the week. I was also participating in this meeting as the project development/reporting officer/communication focal point.

Report Monthly Follow-Up (RFU)

Every month, I was also in charge of updating the Report Monthly Follow Up (RFU), which is ACTED internal, reporting tool to keep up in projects monitoring and new opportunities. It allows the headquarters to be as informed as possible on what is going on in the mission.

Project Reporting

One of the tasks, which were also assigned to me, was to supervise the writing of final reports that we must submit to donors following the end of a program. Therefore, I had to assist the program team, and particularly the Project Manager, to finalise the report. This program, that ACTED in Haiti has been implementing since the cholera outbreak in October 2010

, consists in supporting institutional capacity to monitor the epidemic, respond to major outbreak within 48 hours and raising awareness on hygiene as well as rehabilitating water points/sources. Most of the report is written by the Project Manager and then send to the Reporting Officer to be consolidated. The process is not easy as reports can be quite technical and also because a Reporting Officer does not follow, day-to-day, the implementation of projects. However, the main task of the Reporting Officer is to make the report understandable and fluid

5after it was brought by Nepalese peacekeepers

for donors.

d. Coordination

During my internship, I have also attended several meetings. Most of them were sectorial meetings such

as the DRR (Disaster Risk Reduction) meetings and forums but I have also had the opportunity to replace my Head of Mission during some national coordination meetings, especially the ones organized by the CCO (Comité de Coordination des ONG). Those meetings have been highly helpful in understanding the dynamics and mechanisms of cooperation actors within a country.

e. Communication & Advocacy

Advocacy

As explained before I supervised the drafting of an advocacy note on the drought situation. In addition, I also supervised the drafting of an advocacy note for the COP21 in order to support the Contribution Prévue Déterminée au niveau National (CPDN) that is the national contribution to the commitments taken as part of the COP21. In order to do so we invited all the CCO members to a working session at our office so we could debate about which stance to adopt. We discussed the CPDN drafted by the Haitian government and particularly the elements to be supported and those to be added. After a 3-hour working session, I had enough material to start drafting the note. It was highly interesting as I was in charge to compile each NGO’s opinion but also consolidate the document and opinions through my own research. It took about two weeks to have a definite note, which was then endorsed by all the CCO members and the Plateforme pour le Changement Climatique (PSC). The note was presented during the COP21 and also supported by different national platforms as well as the Francophone Organization (Organisation pour la Francophonie). The note can be find online at

Communication

In addition to this work, I also went on a field mission to take videos for the COP21 as ACTED was

compiling videos from all over the world in the sector of climate change. Therefore I went on a two days

mission in Thiotte where I interviewed around 15 people. In order to do so I had guidelines from the

headquarter as to how the interview should be made, what kind of questions to ask etc. The process was

highly interesting as I had the opportunity to meet people from different horizons such as farmers (both

men and women), people safeguarding a protected forest, coffee makers (planters) etc. They all were very

enthusiastic about the videos as it provided them with an opportunity to express themselves. After the

field mission, I selected six videos, translated them from Creole into French and sent it to the headquarters so they could use it.

In addition to this communication work, I was also in charge of dealing with the visibility materials for our project. It consisted in designed our communication materials such as t-shirts, hats, boards etc. with respect to the donors and NGO logos. It was not a very challenging task also I realise that having no training in photography or communication made things harder to be done.

4. Supervision

During my internship I was supervised both directly by the Head of Mission who was previously working in the Project Development department, and the Project Development Manager (PDM). However, I worked quite autonomously although they were providing me with core guidelines as how to do my work.

For instance, they would be telling me that I would be working in developing a given proposal and would support me in doing so by giving me advice on the logic of intervention to be developed. In addition, I could more specifically discuss about my work and potential difficulties with the PDM. Since the hierarchy was very horizontal, we could discuss and dialogue very easily. After each submitted proposal we always took 30 minutes to 1 hour to discuss the all process and learn from it.

5. Living conditions

The living conditions as an expatriate staff in Haiti are very good. In the first place, ACTED provides all

its volunteers with housing, a monthly per diem (living allowance), a return flight, medical and

repatriation insurance. With regards to the housing, we had two three bedrooms flats for the expatriate

staff who chose to live within ACTED’s housing with everything we needed. The flat was situated in

Pacot, which is a residential and safe area of Port-au-Prince, very close from our office. In addition, every

month we received around 550$ (or the equivalent in gourdes, the local money) as a living allowance. In

general, the living allowance is only 300$ because we were supposed to be provided with lunch and

dinner but it was not the case in Haiti (only lunch were included). We also had a car and a driver

dedicated to us from 7am to midnight every day. Overall, Haiti is an enjoyable country to live in. The

security situation is quite stable although there can be some violent protests, mostly triggered by the

political context which remains volatile. Some poor neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince are forbidden to

UN and NGOs staff such as Cité Soleil where crime rates are said to be very high (although there is no

accurate data). With ACTED, we usually did not have any curfew expect during elections where we have

sometimes been confined over the weekend. The only rules that we must follow are to use only ACTED

or other NGOs/UN cars, not to go in some neighbourhood of the city (such as Cité Soleil) and not walk in Port-au-Prince (but it is allowed everywhere else in the country). Haitians are quite welcoming although most of them will wait until you give them a “positive” sign to come and talk to you. There are a lot of local markets to buy fruits and vegetable but also much “westernised” supermarkets. Almost every products can be found but the prices rise quickly as it is all imported. In addition, it is better to support the local economy by consuming local food and products. Most expatriates and upper class Haitians go out in Petionville, which is a wealthy neighbourhood of Port au Prince where there are many restaurants, bars, some shops and hotels. However, it does not represent the way most Haitians are living.

6. Conclusion

a. Intrinsic and personal learning effects

To me, this experience was much more than an internship as I had already done many. From the start of my work at ACTED, I have been considered as an integral part of the team and was never reminded that I was an intern. In external meetings, I always introduced myself as a Project Development Officer. The responsibilities that were given to me kept increasing, and even though it meant working harder it has been highly rewarding. Within four months I learnt so much and gained a lot of confidence in fulfilling the tasks assigned to me.

b. Expectations, Difficulties & Problems

The expectations I had from this internship have almost all been fulfilled. Indeed, being given

responsibility and autonomy in my work were among the expectations I had. However, I was a bit disappointed not having been actively and closely managed during the course of the internship. There have been several occasions during which I did not have the methodology to properly fulfil my work.

For instance, when I had to lead an evaluation to target beneficiaries in situation of food insecurity with the HEA (household economy approach) methodology, it was quite tough and I could not properly fulfil my work. Similarly, the guidance I had regarding the development of logic of intervention in the project development sector remained quite vague. I quickly realised that it was assumed that I had enough experience to do my work on my own although I could always rely on my colleague’s advice.

c. SWOT analysis of the internship and organisation

Strengths

Internship:

 Fulfilling personal and professional development

 Fast learning pace

 Flexibility in choosing tasks and to specialise in sectors of interest (protection, gender etc.)

 Tasks diversity Organisation:

 Internationally recognized, dynamic and growing NGO

 Horizontal management

 Multi-sectors and working in emergency, rehabilitation and development settings

 Financial and medical support (covering all professional related costs and medical care)

Weaknesses

Internship:

 Lack of technical training provided (external) – for instance on launching a need assessment Organisation:

 Lack of procedures specific to the project development department (no manual)

 Lack of connectedness between missions

Opportunities

Internship:

 External networking (through representing ACTED at several meetings/conference)

 Job opportunities within ACTED

 Working in autonomy

 Interacting with the local population quite often (field missions arranged easily) Organisation:

 Growing organization with promising perspectives

 Value and encourage the work of young professionals

Threats

Internship:

 Stress

 Long working hours

 Level of internal organisation

 Partial lack of technical knowledge within the organisation (no technical focal point at HQ or regional level)

Organisation:

 N/A

d. Analysis of the function of the internship as part of the NOHA master

During the course of my internship, I mainly applied what was taught during my management course (semester 1) as most of my work consisted in developing/writing project proposals. Therefore this course has proved quite useful in understanding how to develop a project. In addition, professional seminars that we had also helped me during the course of my work such as the workshops on DRR, advocacy, security management, food security etc. The main gaps I had were on the knowledge of other humanitarian actors and their roles in the humanitarian system. For instance, how does a cluster works?

What are the different types of coordination mechanisms? What are the values uphold by different NGOs? What kind of report to write for a donor? How to manage a project (“programme oriented courses)? How do you follow up on the financial management? Etc. However, for the kind of position I had, having a multidisciplinary background is of utmost importance; excellent communication skills are also needed.

e. Assessment for the positioning on the job market

This internship has clearly well positioned me on the job market and helped me understand what kind of

job I aspired for. Indeed, following my volunteering period which lasted for 6 months (although only 4

months are being reported in this document) I was offered a Project Development Officer position at

ACTED where I have mainly continued fulfilling the work I had as a volunteer but with greater

autonomy and responsibilities. I realised that I was very interested in the coordination sector but also the

project development sector as you keep working on developing new project with new partners. It also

made me realise that there are many positions that I would like to take within the organization to be able

to work my way up. At this moment, I have been offered a position as a Project Manager for a Cash

Transfer program funded by WFP where I would be managing a team of 13 people and implementing a

program with thousands of households as beneficiaries. Switching to program is something that I had

been thinking about as it provides you with the opportunity to manage all aspects of a project ranging

from finance to human resources. For this reason, I strongly believe that I made the right choice to start

off with ACTED as they have provided me with an incredible work opportunity and made sure to

strengthen/develop my skills and take me further up.