UNICEF Opens 6-Month Paid Internship for 2026 with Monthly Stipend up to Rs 1.5 Lakh
New Delhi: UNICEF, in collaboration with Education Cannot Wait (ECW), has opened applications for the 2026 Monitoring and Evaluation Internship Roster, offering a six-month, fully funded opportunity for postgraduate students and early-career professionals.
Education Cannot Wait is the United Nations’ global fund dedicated to supporting education for children and youth affected by conflict, disasters, and displacement. The internship programme aims to strengthen global education responses in emergency and crisis settings.
Hosted by UNICEF, the internship provides hands-on exposure to monitoring, evaluation, learning, and evidence generation within a global humanitarian framework. Selected interns will receive a monthly stipend of up to USD 1,700 (approximately Rs 1.5 lakh).
The internship can be undertaken in-person in Geneva or New York, or remotely, with flexibility to work according to Geneva or Central European Time (CET) hours.
Internship Roles and Responsibilities
Interns selected for the programme will work with the ECW Secretariat and contribute across multiple focus areas.
Key responsibilities include supporting the Annual Results Report through data quality checks, coordination with programme managers, coding qualitative data, and drafting selected report sections.
Interns will also assist in knowledge synthesis and organisational learning, which involves conducting literature and programme reviews, supporting qualitative data collection, organising webinars, and creating learning materials such as briefs, blogs, and presentations.
Another core area of work includes strengthening data systems and information management, where interns will support database maintenance, test ECW’s information management platform, and ensure alignment with monitoring and evaluation processes and data standards.
Midway through the internship, each intern will design and implement a special individual project aligned with ECW’s monitoring, evaluation, learning, or knowledge management priorities.
Eligibility Criteria
Applicants must be at least 18 years old and should be currently enrolled in, or have graduated within the last three years, from a Bachelor’s or Master’s programme.
An academic background in education, international development, social sciences, statistics, monitoring and evaluation, or related fields is required. Candidates should have experience in qualitative or quantitative analysis, with working knowledge of Microsoft Excel. Familiarity with tools such as R, STATA, Power Query, or Kobo will be considered an advantage.
Applicants must be proficient in English, while knowledge of French or Spanish is desirable. Lived experience in a low- or middle-income country is considered a strong asset. All candidates must meet UNICEF’s safeguarding and internship eligibility requirements.
Application Process
Applications must be submitted through the UNICEF Careers Portal under Job Number 588321.
The deadline for submission is 19 December 2025 at midnight EST. Candidates applying for placements in the United States or Switzerland must arrange their own visas or work permits, if required.
Working Conditions and Stipend
The internship is full-time, requiring 35 hours per week, with flexibility to accommodate academic commitments. Interns are entitled to up to 2.5 days off per month.
The stipend is set at USD 1,700 per month for duty stations in Geneva, New York, and Copenhagen. For other locations, interns will receive 70 percent of the GS-3 Step 1 monthly salary, as per UNICEF norms.
ECW plans to recruit five interns, with start dates between February and March 2026. The programme offers valuable exposure to global humanitarian coordination and provides a strong foundation for careers in the United Nations, international NGOs, research organisations, and education-focused development agencies.
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