Settling in

Last Thursday I started my internship at the UN University for Peace working with UNDP-GEF Small Grant Projects. The work to come looks promising, and I have been trying to use my time wisely to prepare to successfully carry out for that doesn’t lie in my area of expertise. (Left photo: view from our offices in El Rodeo, Costa Rica).

The next 11 weeks are going to be an opportunity to learn from some of the most skilled researchers and development professionals in rural development working closely with the international institutions mandated to assist rural communities to improve their standard of living. My task is to coordinate the work of five young researchers to create 5 proposals apt for funding under the biodiversity and climate change focal points of the GEF. Creating the proposals isn’t really the core of the challenge, the research is supposed to shine light over ways in which the funding process can be improved to include all stakeholders in the conception, planning, and implementation process of the project. Thus, I have already met in the local leaders at the monthly meeting of the County Development Association. Our idea was well received and we will start working in a few weeks once we have gathered enough data to build a methodology that allows for strategic planning and development strategies to be created by the community members of each district in the county. (Photo right side: meeting of the Development Association). I plan to use participatory rural appraisal as a framework, trying to complete participatory analysis of primary and secondary sources, group interviews and sequence interviews, collaborative trend analysis, participatory mapping and diagramming, scenario building, creation of key local indicators through scoring and ranking and livelihood analysis, brainstorming on planning, budgeting and monitoring, and rapid ecological appraisal. Of course, having a list doesn’t really take me far, I now need to identify how to facilitate the adoption of these methodologies while working under the institutional framework, running between meetings with funders, scholars, stakeholders, and still remain impartial.

Yeap, I am still settling in.