A day in my life as a virtual intern at the World Bank Group

I joined the World Bank Group’s Social Protection and Jobs practice as a Summer Intern in May 2022. While I had dreamed of working in-person at the World Bank headquarters in Washington DC, starting the job remotely was not any less intimidating . I was given the opportunity to learn from policy leaders and contribute to the world’s biggest institution that aimed at ending world poverty—if I told this to my teen self, she would not believe it.

The World Bank’s Social Protection and Labor Strategy operated with the overarching goal of improving resilience, equity, and opportunities for low- and middle-income countries. The project I was recruited for was a part of World Bank’s effort to operationalize a micro-savings scheme for Liberia’s informal economy workers to build their resilience, especially after the Covid19 pandemic. A large portion of the informal sector workers do not receive social protection from existing social insurance schemes that rely on employer-employee contracts and are often left out of the social assistance programs that are aimed at those below poverty lines. The aim of the scheme that the World Bank was putting together was to ensure coverage of the missed-middle group of informal economy workers in a country with a limited fiscal space.

My manager, a Social Protection Specialist, introduced the project framework to me on the first day and shared research papers for reference. As a part of this work, my first assignment was to compile case studies from 10 developing countries to understand the social protection landscape around the world. I acquainted myself with the literature on the subject. I enjoyed this process a lot because I had observed the dire need for social protection programs during my previous work at SEWA and wanted to better understand these policies. . It was overwhelming at first to learn the technical aspects of the schemes and to get thorough with contexts of 10 different countries, but I got the opportunity to speak with the government officials of these countries to clarify all my questions. I analyzed the design, governance, and enabling environments. I felt extremely grateful to get access to knowledge and information from many different parts of the world that was possible through the World Bank. Another great learning opportunity for me was to join the Social Security Conference, which brought together experts in social security programs from many countries.

It was also wonderful to connect with colleagues at the Bank through virtual catch-up calls during the first half of the internship, and then meet them in person during my visit to DC. That was truly the best week of my internship.. I also got to visit the HQ—the massive establishment that reflected its ideals through engravings on the walls. ‘Our dream: a world free of poverty’, said one such engravings, making me intensely aware of the mission that I was contributing to.