SUMMER SCHOLARS BLOG: Meenakshi Viswanathan

A view of the Metro Manila cityscape from the neighboring city of Antipolo

This summer, I have had the incredible opportunity to work at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) country office in the Philippines. I am currently writing this blog post from Mandaluyong, a city in the Metro Manila Region. For the past 8 weeks, I have been working with the UNDP Accelerator Lab team as a Knowledge Management Intern.

Accelerator Labs are embedded within UNDP but focus specifically on grassroots-level innovations and solutions. Accelerator Labs (here onwards known as ALabs) are built to be agile and dynamic so that it can be on the look-out for ideas that have potential to contribute towards achieving the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development. ALabs have three pillars — Exploration, Solutions Mapping, and Experimentation. ALabs work at the local-level in identifying unique social innovations/enterprises that address one or more development challenges. They test out hypotheses of ideas and work with these localized solutions to help develop solutions that are small but agile, hyper-local, and impactful. The ALab in the Philippines works across a broad range of development issues, such as circular economy, food systems, poverty and inequality, public services, and more.

My work so far

As a Knowledge Management intern, I have been helping the ALab team and the broader UNDP Country Office keep track of the various projects that are being implemented which would help them develop future strategies. Over the past eight weeks, I have been developing a dashboard that maps dozens of projects that are currently being implemented in the Bangsomoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). BARMM is the site of intervention by several UN agencies and government bodies. The dashboard that I am building maps out the location of all of the UNDP projects, along with other key information, right down to the city/municipality level. The mapping exercise is important for two reasons — to improve synergy across the many UNDP project teams operating in the region and as a platform that can be used to initiate and inform discussions with other stakeholders, including donors, government, and more.

Awkwardly posing in front of an archway with the single most important item in my hand — an umbrella

As someone with no previous context of the country, I had a lot to learn. With the support of my team, I was able to understand the administrative systems in the Philippines (which share some similarities with my home country, India!). I also had to use advanced GIS tools and data visualization skills. As a newcomer into this space, I learnt multiple softwares and went through several rounds of development, testing, and debugging. As challenging as it was, I immensely enjoyed the process of learning about a new country at such a deep level. Oh, and the satisfaction of finally getting the dashboard up and running was exhilarating!

I have been incredibly lucky to be working with the ALab team who have been friendly, supportive, and patient. Right from answering questions about the complicated Filipino administrative systems to vetting my AirBnb choices and giving me stellar recommendations for weekend plans, the team has made my first-ever visit to the Philippines joyful.

Discovering ‘Maynila’

Having a month to spend in the Philippines, suffice it to say that I have been having jam-packed weekends. The Metro Manila Region is huge — it encompasses 16 cities. Even though the typhoon season often hinders my ambitious beach plans, I have been soaking up as much of the city (or should I say, cities) as possible. An avid museum lover, I have been able to visit the many museums in Metro Manila and beyond. The Pinto Art Museum, which boasts an incredible collection, is a definite highlight. The museum is a series of galleries set amidst a wooded area where I got lost many many times. It’s also located in the neighboring city of Antipolo which is at a higher altitude and thus boasts of killer views of the Manila cityscape…

Read and see more from Meenakshi’s blog here

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Our Summer Scholars Blog, a collection of reports from post-grad scholars that UNA-NYC has sponsored globally, showcases our fellows' experiences with UN agencies and non-governmental organizations in the country where they are working. Learn more about our Summer Scholars fellowship program and fellows here.