Data and Statistics Intern

Background:

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.

The Policy Division develops and implements the UN Women corporate programme of work on analysis, research and knowledge management that provides the evidence base for the advice and guidance UN Women provides to development practitioners, the intergovernmental process, the UN system, and to UN Women staff working at country and regional level on issues of gender equality and women’s empowerment. The Division identifies emerging issues and trends, including gaps and challenges, and develops and proposes new strategies for achieving the agreed goals through innovative approaches and lessons learned about what works in practice. 

The Research and Data Section in the Policy Division is responsible for leading UN Women’s research and data agenda. It manages a large global network of leading feminist researchers; produces high profile knowledge products including UN Women flagship publications such as Progress of the World’s Women and the Progress on the SDGs: The Annual Gender Snapshot; and leads UN Women’s growing portfolio of work on gender statistics, including monitoring of the SDGs and cutting-edge work to develop new statistical methodologies. Under the direct supervision and guidance from the statistics specialist, the intern will be expected to work on the various flagship publications including literature reviews, statistical analysis, modeling, data visualizations and factchecking. 

Description of Responsibilities

• Support research work for flagship reports, such as: Progress on the SDGs: The Annual Gender Snapshot 2026, and Progress of the World’s Women 2026, through literature reviews and preparation of background research documents,
• Develop data visualizations to be included in  reports using statistical packages such as R and tools such as Excel and Power BI,
• Use machine learning and AI tools to run sophisticated analyses of global datasets, and contribute innovative research insights to the reports,
• Participate in writing, checking and running code scripts in STATA or R to extract indicators from large international datasets such as the Demographic and Health Surveys from USAID and the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys from UNICEF,

Learning objectives

• Increase understanding of UN Women’s work and the UN system;
• Increase knowledge of women’s rights and gender equality;
• Increase knowledge regarding applied gender-responsive research and gender policy work;
• Increase knowledge regarding quantitative research methods and gender statistics; 
• Work as a team member in a multicultural setting.

Competencies :

Core Values:

• Integrity;
• Professionalism;
• Respect for Diversity.

Core Competencies:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues;
• Accountability;
• Creative Problem Solving;
• Effective Communication;
• Inclusive Collaboration;
• Stakeholder Engagement;
• Leading by Example.

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Values and Competencies Framework: 

Functional Competencies:

• Interest in development, research, advocacy, and gender policy work.
• A well-developed understanding of quantitative research methods.
• Experience with statistical programming, including machine learning models and approaches, use of AI tools, and preferably STATA or Python

Qualifications

Education:

•  University studies in one of the following disciplines:: Economics, Statistics, Public Policy (with a quantitative focus)  a similar field with emphasis on quantitative analysis 
• Meet one of the following: 

a) Be enrolled in a postgraduate degree programme (such as a master’s programme, or higher);[KS1] 

b) Be enrolled in the final academic year of a first university degree programme (such as bachelor’s degree or equivalent);

c) Be enrolled in a mandatory national service programme of which the internship may form a part;

d) Have recently graduated with a university de