What is the UN Young Professionals Programme?

• Initially you will be appointed for two years and then be reviewed for a continuing appointment.
• The Organization promotes mobility within and across duty stations and job families.
• As a new recruit you are expected to work in a different duty station for your second assignment.
• You will be offered orientation and mobility training as well as career support.
• This will help you adapt and accelerate the learning period leading to productive work and job satisfaction as an international civil servant.

Who we are

• The world looks to the United Nations for solutions to complex problems everywhere; from ending conflict and alleviating poverty, to combating climate change and defending human rights. The issues on our agenda are manifold and diverse as are the careers we offer. Among our ranks you will find staff members who monitor elections, disarm child soldiers, coordinate relief in humanitarian crises and provide administrative as well as logistical support to carry out our complex mandates. These are just a few examples amongst our many other equally critical and necessary functions.
• The wide array of jobs means that you may change functions, departments, geographic locations, and even organizations or fields of work throughout your career in the Organization.
• The diversity of our people, some 41,000 staff from our 193 Member States, means that you will find yourself working in multi-cultural teams with people from all backgrounds and cultures who have wide perspectives, experiences, expectations as well as approaches.
• As an international civil servant, you are expected to uphold the highest standards of efficiency, competence and integrity in all matters affecting your work and status. Integrity includes probity, impartiality, fairness, honesty and truthfulness. Those we serve have a right to expect no less.

What we do

• The United Nations is an international organization founded in 1945 and committed to maintaining international peace and security; developing friendly relations among nations; promoting social progress, better living standards and human rights.
• Due to its unique international character, and the powers vested in its founding Charter, the Organization takes action on a wide range of issues, and provides a forum for its 193 Member States to express their views, through the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council and other bodies and committees.
• The work of the United Nations touches every corner of the globe and focuses on a broad range of fundamental issues, like sustainable development, protection of the environment and refugees, disaster relief and mitigation, counter terrorism, as well as disarmament and non-proliferation.
• In September 2015, world leaders gathered at the United Nations Headquarters in New York and unanimously adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a new universal standard for development that will ensure no one is left behind.
• 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent the cornerstone of the historic, transformational Agenda. Building on the success of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the SDGs aim to go further to end all forms of poverty. Universal and indivisible, the SDGs call for action by all countries—developed, developing and middle-income—to promote prosperity while protecting the planet over the next fifteen years.
• The SDGs officially came into force on 1 January 2016. Governments, businesses and civil society have started mobilizing efforts to achieve the goals, by aligning their priorities with the SDGs and adopting plans to achieve them.