Oh yeah, I have a job :)

So the reason I am in Addis is to complete an internship with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. I am working with the Economic Development and NEPAD Division, and have at the moment been assigned to the NEPAD Support Section. The office is located in a very large UN compound, along with other regional and country UN offices. 

I spent most of my first day waiting, but things have slowly picked up. The office is quiet, very quiet. It is filled with smart academics producing very long and important documents. So far, I have been tasked with working on a few of those documents. 

I will explain a bit about what the NEPAD Support Section does...but since I don't want to bore you...I will try to keep it brief. In order to support the NEPAD (The New Partnership for Africa's Development) agenda for development in Africa, a Regional Coordination Mechanism (RCM) was designed to improve coordination between UN agencies. It organizes the agencies into clusters based on the topic areas of NEPAD (i.e. Governance, Social and Human Development), and these clusters work to support the NEPAD agenda by increasing the capacity of the AU and NEPAD to carry out their agenda. So, essentially, the RCM coordinates UN support to the AU and NEPAD.

So...what does this mean for development? This what I'm still trying to figure out. The idea is that improving coordination at the regional level and supporting the AU and NEPAD will ultimately improve development work on the ground. Currently, this is happening in some countries through an increase in the incorporation of NEPAD into National Development Plans. The goal is that all National Development Plans would reflect the NEPAD agenda...and that this will lead to better development outcomes.

Anyways, I'm still figuring it all out as I read and read and read. Right now it all seems very abstract. Hopefully by the end of the internship I will be able to better articulate the work that is being done and my thoughts on this work.