Traineeship: City-Business Cooperation

The overall purpose of the traineeship is to train the successful candidate in the promotion and facilitation of city-business cooperation from ICLEI's perspective as an international local government association, both in terms of content and implementation skills. For this purpose, the traineeship includes two complementary training modules, i.e. the City-Business Cooperation Research module and an Event Organization: Metropolitan Solutions module. After six month of training, a third module, Event Evaluation and Reporting, will provide the opportunity to take responsibility in the project and to utilize and refine the skills and knowledge gained in the training. Through completing the traineeship, the successful candidate will reach the following training objectives:

- Understanding ICLEI's global advocacy and project work, particularly the dynamics between global debates and trans-sectorial local action, and the importance and challenges of supporting advocacy and global urban sustainability through concrete cases and information.

The final objective would be mastering the following tasks:

Drawing relevant information from and feeding global debates, i.e. by assisting in the designing / writing/ editing of positioning documents, project outlines, briefing sheets, event announcements and similar documents
Event organization, facilitation and program development through hands-on program and event format development, communication and outreach and on-site event implementation, as well as evaluation and reporting of events.
- Understanding the "language" of local governments and businesses, differences and overlaps in their agendas and how they can work together better to promote urban sustainability.

The final objective would be mastering the following tasks:

Understanding of the challenges and potential synergies of trans-sectorial approaches between complex departmentalized municipal structures as the demand side for urban solutions and for-profit businesses as solution suppliers,
Understanding how to work with businesses and cities as well as the respective strengths (and limitations) of both sectors in promoting urban sustainability,
Learning how to present information on global debates on sustainable development to both local governments and businesses so that it is relevant, applicable, tangible and interesting for both sides
Learning how to best design city-business cooperation models and dialogue facilitation formats that enable effective collaboration of both sectors for urban sustainability.
- Developing research, organizational and communication skills and competences.

The final objective would be mastering the following tasks:

Thorough research and accessible publication writing for a heterogeneous, non-academic audience of experts from both the public and private sector,
Researching for an co-writing of an ICLEI/WBCSD study on city-business cooperation and related case studies,
Drawing conclusions from the case studies experiences and starting to develop recommendations based on them.
- Developing or improving organizational and communication skills and competences.

The final objective would be mastering the following tasks:

Event/ conference organization, development and communication from conceptual tasks to practical implementation.
Learning necessary software skills to execute required tasks, such as website content management, newsletter content production and dissemination as well as professional publication layout.

Requirements

Degree in a relevant subject such as Urban Planning/Design, Environmental Management, Governance, Engineering, Sustainability Science, Environmental Business Management or comparable
Strong interest in the areas of cities and local governments/governance, urban planning & management, communication, event organization, administrative support
Good academic track record
Organizing skills, well organized and structured working style, creative and pro-active attitude
Experience in event organization
Excellent communication style, in writing and orally
Confident user of Microsoft Office applications,
Web management experience (Typo3 or other CMS), social media experience (Twitter)
Excellent command of English language (written and spoken), good command of German, further languages are an asset.

Job Email id: jobs.bonn(at)iclei.org