Advocacy, Reporting and Data Internship

UN-Habitat is engaging interns to support stakeholder mobilization and engagement towards WUF 13 and systematizing and strengthening stakeholder engagement, advocacy and campaign management and databases following learnings from WUF13.

The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) is mandated by the UN General Assembly to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities. UN-Habitat is the focal point for all urbanization and human settlement matters within the UN system.

UN-Habitat works with partners to build inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities and communities. UN-Habitat promotes urbanization as a positive transformative force for people and communities, reducing inequality, discrimination and poverty.  Global Knowledge and Advocacy Division (GKAD) supports UN-Habitat as a global thought leader, lead advocate and a partner of choice on adequate housing and sustainable urban development to realize the New Urban Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals, the SDG 11 on Sustainable Cities and Communities in particular.

GKAD does this by strengthening the visibility, evidence, and partnerships through cutting-edge research, data-driven insights, digital innovations, and capacity development. At the same time, GKAD advances the goals of UN-Habitat and the UN System by engaging in strategic communications and advocacy to foster transformative policy action through mobilizing and collaborating with stakeholders.

To advance the global knowledge, advocacy and partnership mission of GKAD, the World Urban Forum (WUF) works as a premier conference on housing and sustainable urban development and UN-Habitat’s largest platform for stakeholder consultation. As per the United Nations General Assembly mandates of WUF, it serves as a platform where experts convene and deliberate on matters of sustainable urban development.

Specifically, within the Strategic Plan of UN-Habitat for the period 2026-2029, the thirteenth session of WUF (WUF 13) will take place in Baku, Azerbaijan (17-22 May 2026) on the theme of “Housing the World: Safe and Resilient Cities and Communities”. UN-Habitat is running a Stakeholder Engagement Initiative for WUF13 that seeks to mobilize diverse actors, co-create meaningful contributions, and strengthen follow-up and sustained engagement and advocacy between sessions of WUF.

The internship positions are in GKAD and seek to support the UN-Habitat’s stakeholder engagement toward WUF13 and preparations for WUF14 in 2028 in Mexico as well as assist GKAD in its coordination functions pertaining to implementation of the Strategic Plan.

Responsibilities

Under the overall guidance and direct supervision of the Head of Advocacy and Stakeholders Unit, the incumbent will support data management and analysis and advocacy duties as well as responsibilities related to coordination of the Strategic Plan 2026-2029 Subprogramme 4 under following focus areas of the Advocacy and Stakeholders Unit, including but not limited to:

1) Stakeholder Database Management and Updating

• Maintain and regularly update the stakeholder database with new registrations, consultation records, and stakeholder contacts

2) Data Cleaning and Consolidation

• Apply agreed data cleaning rules to ensure accuracy, consistency, and integrity of the dataset
• Conduct regular data quality checks and validation

3) Data Analysis and Reporting Support

• Prepare and maintain analysis-ready datasets for reporting and stakeholder engagement activities
• Apply appropriate AI Tools to enhance data analysis, automate processes, and improve reporting outputs.
• Support the generation of summary statistics as requested and develop analytical outputs on different applications (e.g. Excel, Canva, PowerBI, SPSS)

4) Global Advocacy and campaigns

• Develop compelling advocacy materials, including articles, blog posts, social posts, and newsletters, to effectively communicate key messages on adequate housing and sustainable urban development.
• Collaborate with team members to create visually engaging content, to amplify advocacy efforts.
• Support the team on planning, organization and execution of advocacy events, WUF sessions, and campaigns aimed at raising awareness and mobilizing support for housing and urban initiatives.
• Support logistics and manage communications and ensure seamless execution of events both in-person and virtually.

5) Coordination of the UN-Habitat Strategic Plan Subprogramme 4

• Maintain and regularly update the monitoring and reporting database of Subprogramme 4 with inputs from the UN-Habitat Focal Points;
• Support the collaboration networks and database of Focal Points.
• Support the Subprogramme 4 Coordinator in drafting the progress reports and related presentations for the Director of GKAD, the UN-Habitat executive management group and for review meetings by governing bodies of UN-Habitat.

Qualifications/special skills

Applicants must at the time of application, meet one of the following requirements:

a. Be enrolled in a graduate school programme (second university degree or equivalent, or higher),
b. Be enrolled in the final academic year of a first university degree program (minimum Bachelor’s level or equivalent),
c. Have graduated with Bachelor’s degree, Masters, PhD or equivalent.

Be computer literate in standard software applications (Microsoft Office Suite).

Have demonstrated a keen interest in the work of the United Nations and have a personal commitment to the ideals of the Charter.

Have a demonstrated ability to successfully interact with individuals of different cultural backgrounds and beliefs, which includes a willingness to try and understand and be tolerant of differing opinions and views.

Preferred areas of study: Bachelor’s degree in Data Science / Statistics, Economics, Information Management / Information Systems, Communications, Public Relations, Business Administration, Urban Studies / Development Studies or related field is required.

Applicants to the UN Internship Programme are not required to have professional work experience. However, a field of study that is closely related to the type of internship that you are applying for is required.

Applicants must be a student in the final year of the first university degree (bachelor or equivalent), Master’s or Ph.D. Programme or equivalent, or have completed a Bachelor’s, Master’s or Ph.D. Programme.

Proficiency in Microsoft Excel for data management and analysis is required. Please explain how you meet this criterion, including examples of how you have used Excel to clean, organize, or analyse datasets (e.g. use of formulas, filtering, deduplication, or pivot tables).

Experience in data cleaning, consolidation, and managing large datasets is required. Please describe your experience handling datasets with duplicate or inconsistent entries, including the approach you used to identify, clean, and consolidate data.

Languages
For this internship position, fluency in oral and written English is required. Knowledge of another UN language is desirable.

Do you meet any of the above criteria? If yes, please indicate which one and attach proof to the application. Please note that you will have to provide an official certificate at a later stage.