Federico in Haiti: from an Inconvenient Internship to a Job at UNDP
He lives in an apartment in Port-au-Prince where the water is supplied by trucks and the electricity is provided by a generator. The traffic is so bad that every morning he carpools to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) with his colleagues. Minor inconveniences do not scare Federico Lo Giudice, 26, who grew up in a small village near Novara. Six months ago he flew to Haiti to contribute to the development of Haiti. "Haiti provides you with a different perspective on the world", he says. "It's the first country in history formed by freed slaves, who rebelled against the French in the same period as the French Revolution. It has a rich culture, but it's a vulnerable country with high levels of social inequality. It's as big as Lombardy, but 33 times poorer. We Europeans have forgotten that our history is closely tied to that of far away countries".
Lo Giudice has always strived for fieldwork experiences. After graduating in Political Science and going to Paris on the Erasmus program, he attended the Master of Science in Economics and Management of Public Administration and International Institutions (CLAPI), "a very useful experience". Then he flew to New York for an internship at the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. "Participating in the final stages of negotiations for the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was an invaluable educational experience". Through the Bocconi Career service, he applied for an internship opportunity with UNDP Haiti in August 2015. It was the chance he was waiting for. In October 2015 he started working in Port-Au-Prince. Under the supervision of the head of the Poverty Reduction Unit, he dealt with development topics such as multidimensional poverty and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as a member of a team. At the end of the three-month internship, he obtained a one-year contract as a consultant in UNDP Haiti's Office of the Senior Country Director. Today he is taking part in the drafting of UNDP's development plan for Haiti for the next five years.
The experience in Haiti has restored his faith in international organizations' positive effects on society. "We are so disillusioned that we do not even try to act. I think it is so important to act and show change is possible. Even when playing a small role in a big UN agency I know I am making a difference, and it gives me a real sense of accomplishment, I think a feeling you can only have when you work at country level". And yet internship offers are ignored. "I can see the reason why. You must think seriously before going to an insecure country with a different standard of living. I have seen people come to Haiti and leave in a hurry, unable to adapt and deal with diversity. You must be ready to face a certain level of human and professional complexity. You must be driven by the desire to discover, learn, and understand. You cannot implement a development program from thousands of miles away".