Humanitarian Practice Internship – Summer 2024

Position description

InterAction is the largest U.S.-based alliance of international non-government organizations (NGOs) and partners. Celebrating our 40th anniversary this year, we mobilize our Members to think and act collectively to serve the world’s poor and vulnerable, with a shared belief that we can make the world a more peaceful, just, and prosperous place – together. Using our collective voice and convening power, we seek to shape important policy decisions and actions across a wide range of issues – including foreign assistance, humanitarian relief, development, economic equity, food security, and climate change.

Our Members are premier international global development, humanitarian, and sector-supporting organizations that work in almost every country and manage more than $15.4 billion in programs annually. InterAction’s revenue comes from dues, government, private foundation and corporate grants, and fee-for-service programs. Additional information can be found at www.interaction.org.

About the Humanitarian Policy and Practice team

InterAction’s Humanitarian Policy and Practice (HPP) team has established itself in the past decade as one of the most prominent collectives of humanitarian NGO voices on the global stage and with U.S. policy decision makers.  The HPP team aims to catalyze change both in terms of humanitarian policy and practice by leading NGO engagement in multilateral and USG-facing platforms, convening and representing NGO positions on broad-scale policy development as well as on context specific operational issues and by documenting and disseminating best practices on NGO coordination, protection and shelter and settlements.

The Humanitarian Practice team, specifically, convenes country-specific working groups focusing on collective advocacy towards USG stakeholders, engages with the inter-agency standing committee and its related entities and task forces to elevate country perspectives and positions related to emergency response operations and provides country-level NGO coordination support and ground-truth the representation and discussion across these platforms.

 

Position Description

The incumbent will support InterAction’s humanitarian practice team across its workstreams and in coordination with those of the broader HPP team.  Key functions of this role include:

Fora Forum Conference Support:

• Assisting with administrative tasks related to conference planning, such as maintaining databases, organizing documents, and supporting communication with attendees and presenters.
• Supporting the organization of logistics for conference events, including venue setup, attendee registration, and coffee/lunch breaks.
• Collaborating with team members to coordinate session schedules and ensure all necessary materials are prepared.
• Providing on-site support during the conference, including taking minutes for select sessions; assisting attendees with inquiries; gathering and responding to real-time feedback; and supporting session transitions.
• Offering creative input for improving the conference experience and enhancing its overall impact.

Working Group Support:

• Providing administrative and logistical support for country-facing working group meetings, including writing summaries of the proceedings, and facilitating the follow-up of action points.

Other Stakeholder Meeting Support:

• Supporting the facilitation of InterAction meetings with various stakeholders both internally and externally, including NGO Fora, InterAction members, USG counterparts, think tanks/institutions of higher learning, and UN as appropriate.
• As needed, facilitating transportation/accompaniment to visitors.

Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E):

• Proactively updating team M&E tools.
• Supporting collection of the 5Ws from each NGO forum including database management, analysis, and drafting of a results blog.

Research Support:

• Remain abreast of current humanitarian issues and events and regularly liaise with program associates and coordinators in view of identifying research/knowledge gaps
• Contribute to amplifying Member advocacy through blog posts and engagement with the broader communications team

Other tasks as reasonably required by the humanitarian practice team. 

 

Learning Objectives

• Understand core elements of the global humanitarian architecture, including the roles of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), UN, the NGO community, donor governments and civil society organizations;
• Demonstrate knowledge of technical, thematic, or regional issues related to the work of the Humanitarian Practice team;
• Gain experience working in a professional, collaborative team environment;
• Understanding of the pressing issues within the humanitarian non-profit sector vis-à-vis InterAction’s members and access to leading member NGOs;
• Develop communication, writing, and task/time management skills.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree (or working towards one) on international relations, international development, conflict transformation, peacebuilding, humanitarian assistance, or another related field
• Able to commit to at least 32 hours per week
• Strong organizational skills with attention to detail
• Solid writing, editing, and research skills, with ability to write quickly and effectively
• Experience with data analysis
• Ability to take in a substantial amount of information, potentially on topics the intern is unfamiliar with, and synthesize that information into a digestible format
• Self-starter and self-motivated
• Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite
• Adapt quickly to changing priorities and contribute positively to a fast-paced and dynamic team environment
• Commitment to teamwork, a good sense of humor, and curiosity coupled with good interpersonal skills

Preferred Qualifications

• Able to commit to 40 hours per week
• Interest, familiarity, and/or coursework in humanitarian assistance

Supervisory Responsibilities

The position (supervises or does not supervise) employees.

 

Compensation

This will be a paid internship. 12 weeks for / $17.50 an hour – DC minimum wage. Start and end dates are flexible. Interns must be located in/have an address in DC, Maryland, or Virginia and have the right to work in the US. InterAction is also happy to administratively support class credit if needed. InterAction maintains a hybrid work environment and employees are eligible to telework three days a week and work in the office two days a week

Application instructions

Please be sure to indicate you saw this position on globalvacancies.org