Tsvetelina Van Benthem Internship Report
Between February 25th and May 24th, 2019, I had the pleasure of interning at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), New York. It was an important experience for me in many ways, both on а professional and personal level. Looking back at the internship, three words come to mind, as they seem to perfectly describe my time with OCHA – it was interesting, complex and eye-opening. It was interesting: every day was dynamic and offered an array of opportunities to engage with the work of the Organisation.
My long-term project, the drafting of a glossary of humanitarian terms, required research into familiar legal areas, such as international humanitarian law and human rights law, as well as less familiar terrain: the vast database of statements by humanitarian actors, including those pertaining to emergencies and humanitarian access negotiations. I really appreciated the freedom I was given in defining the scope and structure of this project.
Parallel to this, I worked on two Security Council Informal Expert Groups on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, one on the DRC and one on Somalia, did research on the impact of counter-terrorism measures on humanitarian actors and operations, wrote a position paper on sanctions in the DPRK, did research for an OCHA Policy paper, “Building a Culture of Protection: 20 Years of Security Council Engagement on the Protection of Civilians”.
Additionally, I attended a variety of meetings and lectures on displacement, access, international humanitarian law, counter-terrorism measures, wrote notes to file and informal summaries. While these experiences were very diverse in subject-matter, I found all of them thought-provoking and am immensely grateful to the entire team at OCHA for allowing me to explore their respective areas. It was complex: the answers to many questions on strategising were found at the intersection of law and politics, and the task of outlining advocacy points sometimes required an additional inquiry into what is feasible and desirable. This meant engagement with a larger set of (not infrequently conflicting) factors. It was challenging, but worthwhile.
It was eye-opening: the internship allowed me to understand many of the practical challenges that humanitarian actors face, especially along the humanitarian-development nexus. Importantly, I saw it both at the institutional level through the ‘New Way of Working’ and at the level of specific examples: for instance, in the practical hurdles that humanitarian actors encounter on the ground. I am very grateful to the Global Justice Internship Programme for supporting my internship, to the Policy Advice and Planning Section at OCHA for making these three months so meaningful, and to my supervisor, Prof. Dapo Akande, for encouraging me to apply.