Nadege's Journey at UNDP Viet Nam

Nadege's Journey at UNDP Viet Nam

By: Nadege

It has been exactly 4 months since I started my placement at UNDP Viet Nam and I am just catching my breath. In true UN fashion, the first weeks were filled with reports to review and events to attend. The real work came with the preparation of 3 side-events and one booth for the upcoming Sixth GEF assembly. My role was to lead this preparation by acting as the Country Office’s focal point, the regional bureau and headquarters. In my beginner’s perception I thought that this would be a simple piece of cake-how hard can it be to organize 3 events?-  but I quickly sobered up when I realized the complexity of securing speakers, designing coherent agendas, liaising with different units, designing and constantly updating flyers, having a budget approved, taking care of logistics, finding the best ways to make sure that everyone was always up-to-date and on the same page, all the while doing other tasks such as participating in inception missions, reviewing any document landing on my desk, and adapting to a different way of speaking and working.

I was proud that the team and my efforts were rewarded during the GEF-6 assembly by a smooth unfolding of each event and interesting guest speakers. As for myself, the upper management’s overwhelming positive reaction to the UNDP presence during the assembly was a testimony that I had indeed what it took to thrive in this kind of environment and that JPCs were trusted team members. And this is what this placement has been about: beyond disentangling internal communication and relationships, a confirmation that I was able to successfully do hard work and that there was a place for me in the professional world. Thank you, UNAC!