Project profile — Développement international Desjardins - International Internships 2013-2014

• Thailand (10.00%)
• Mali (12.00%)
• Tanzania (12.00%)
• Panama (14.00%)
• Burkina Faso (18.00%)
• Haiti (8.00%)
• Zambia (14.00%)
• Uganda (12.00%)

• Communication: Information and communication technology (ICT) (22040) (12.00%)
• Banking And Financial Services: Informal/semi-formal financial intermediaries (24040) (75.60%)
• Agriculture: Agricultural financial services (31193) (12.40%)

• Gender equality (significant objective)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (significant objective)

This project is part of CIDA's International Youth Internship Program (IYIP), funded by the Government of Canada's Youth Employment Strategy (YES). The IYIP contributes to the YES by providing a large spectrum of Canadian graduates with valuable international development work experience abroad.

The expected intermediate outcomes for this project include: (i) increased awareness among female and male Canadian youth of the equal possibility of working internationally; (ii) enhanced equal employability of female and male International Youth Internship Program (IYIP) interns in Canada and in the field of international development; and (iii) improved capacity of female and male IYIP interns to contribute to international development in a gender-sensitive way.

Results achieved as of the end of the project (March 2014) include: the twelve internships planned took place in five countries. The interns have assisted partners in the development of tools and by providing training and coaching. In Zambia, these new tools (procedures manual, Excel files) allowed to better balance the inventories of the Entrepreneurial Financial Center (EFC) and prepaid accounts. At the EFC Uganda, the coaching provided by the interns allowed credit officers to better organize prospecting and human resources management. The interns have gained new skills that improve their integration into the labour market: analysis capacity, and relational, organizational and language skills. The internships also allowed the interns to use the knowledge gained in school, to confirm their career choice and to gain awareness of international cooperation challenges and socio-economic development of local communities.

• Proactive disclosure