Strategy & International Relations Analyst

PROJECT GUARDIAN STRATEGY & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ANALYST INTERN

ABOUT MORSBY, GORMAN, MCCARTHY LLC

Morsby, Gorman, McCarthy LLC is developing Project Guardian as a multidisciplinary, project-based initiative focused on infrastructure planning, implementation readiness, policy research, partnership development, evidence management, risk analysis, communications, and program coordination.

Project Guardian’s initial work centers on a proposed Kenya-focused infrastructure pilot. Participants will contribute to research, planning, analysis, documentation, and professional-quality project materials intended to help clarify the pilot’s feasibility, evidentiary foundation, funding requirements, implementation conditions, and potential pathways toward responsible replication or expansion.

Participation does not represent employment by, appointment to, or endorsement from any government, university, funder, diplomatic mission, international organization, development institution, community, or prospective partner. Project Guardian is an independent initiative of Morsby, Gorman, McCarthy LLC unless a separate written agreement states otherwise.

PROGRAM TERMS

• Program dates: October 19, 2026–January 29, 2027
• Holiday pause: December 19, 2026–January 3, 2027, during which no routine work is expected
• Fully remote and asynchronous-first
• Normally 5–10 hours per week
• Work exceeding 10 hours in a in a week requires advance written approval
• Participants should not ordinarily exceed approximately 15 hours in any week
• Unpaid educational internship
• Academic credit may be available only when approved by the participant’s institution
• No promise or expectation of future employment
• Reasonable academic and accessibility accommodations will be considered
• Participation is subject to applicable confidentiality, data-handling, authorship, attribution, acceptable-use, and release requirements

EDUCATIONAL STRUCTURE

This is a structured, project-based learning experience. Participants receive defined learning objectives, supervised assignments, written or documented feedback, revision opportunities, and exposure to international relations, political economy, public policy, institutional analysis, infrastructure strategy, and multidisciplinary program work.

Assignments are designed to develop transferable professional competencies through applied work of educational value. Participants may produce portfolio-appropriate materials, excerpts, or descriptions subject to confidentiality, intellectual-property, attribution, political-sensitivity, data-protection, and release requirements.

Inclusion of any project strategy, stakeholder map, country analysis, scenario, institutional profile, briefing, screenshot, or deliverable in a portfolio requires prior written authorization. Authorized portfolio materials may require redaction, aggregation, anonymization, modification, or explanatory limitations.

Academic credit may be available only when approved by the participant’s institution. Participants are responsible for initiating and satisfying their institution’s credit-approval process. Morsby, Gorman, McCarthy LLC will reasonably cooperate with legitimate institutional documentation, learning-agreement, supervision, evaluation, and verification requirements when provided with sufficient notice.

Academic credit is not guaranteed and is not required for participation. The availability, amount, classification, and conditions of credit are determined solely by the participant’s institution.

The internship is intended to complement academic study and professional development. Participants will not displace regular employees, act as diplomats or lobbyists, perform covert intelligence activity, or independently provide legal, political-risk, national-security, foreign-policy, regulatory, or other specialized professional advice.

ROLE PURPOSE

The Strategy & International Relations Analyst supports Project Guardian by researching the institutional, political-economic, diplomatic, regional, development, and strategic context surrounding the proposed Kenya-centered infrastructure pilot.

The analyst may examine public institutions, regional organizations, development frameworks, international partnerships, policy priorities, political-economic conditions, infrastructure strategies, cross-border considerations, and external dependencies relevant to responsible project planning.

The role emphasizes structured public-source research, stakeholder and institutional mapping, strategic-option analysis, scenario development, assumptions testing, and clearly qualified decision support.

This is a hands-on contributor internship, not a diplomatic, lobbying, political-campaign, government-relations, intelligence, or independent external-representation position.

The analyst will not represent Project Guardian to governments or international organizations, advocate for political parties or candidates, seek nonpublic governmental information, or contact external stakeholders without prior authorization.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the conclusion of the internship, the participant should be able to:

• Translate a broad international or strategic question into a bounded research assignment
• Map relevant public, regional, international, development, commercial, academic, and civil-society institutions
• Distinguish formal authority, published mandate, policy influence, operational role, and informal relevance
• Analyze political-economic and institutional conditions using credible public sources
• Distinguish confirmed facts, source claims, analytical inference, assumptions, scenarios, and predictions
• Develop strategic options using explicit criteria, dependencies, tradeoffs, and uncertainties
• Build proportionate scenarios without treating forecasts as certainties
• Identify external dependencies, policy constraints, institutional risks, and potential alignment opportunities
• Explain the difference among research, stakeholder mapping, diplomacy, lobbying, advocacy, intelligence collection, and authorized engagement
• Incorporate Kenyan, regional, and African sources and perspectives into international analysis
• Avoid stereotypes, unsupported geopolitical claims, and overgeneralization
• Prepare concise, neutral, audience-appropriate strategic briefs
• Recognize questions requiring qualified legal, regulatory, sanctions, security, diplomatic, or local review
• Apply confidentiality, attribution, source-verification, and responsible-tool practices
• Incorporate supervisory feedback into revised research and analysis

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES

Strategic Research and Question Framing

• Translate approved strategic topics into bounded questions, subquestions, and proposed outputs
• Clarify the intended decision, audience, geographic scope, timeframe, and required level of confidence
• Identify relevant institutions, policy areas, historical context, terminology, and source categories
• Define what the assignment can and cannot establish
• Distinguish strategic research from prediction, advocacy, negotiation, or intelligence activity
• Identify questions requiring Kenyan, regional, legal, technical, security, or other specialist input
• Develop proportionate research plans that can be completed within the assigned time
• Revise research framing when evidence reveals a material limitation or alternative explanation

Institutional and Stakeholder Mapping

• Identify relevant Kenyan national and county institutions, regional organizations, development institutions, international organizations, academic entities, civil-society actors, commercial participants, and other stakeholder categories
• Document published mandates, responsibilities, jurisdictions, programs, and formal relationships
• Distinguish legal or formal authority from advisory, funding, convening, advocacy, or operational roles
• Identify overlapping mandates, coordination dependencies, unclear responsibilities, and potential decision points
• Avoid inferring endorsement, influence, commitment, or relationship based solely on institutional relevance
• Avoid collecting unnecessary personal information about individual officials or employees
• Use official organizational information and credible locally grounded sources where available
• Clearly label preliminary, incomplete, or inferred relationships

Policy and Strategy Analysis

• Review relevant published policies, development strategies, infrastructure plans, institutional frameworks, and regional agreements
• Record issuing authority, date, jurisdiction, status, scope, and known limitations
• Distinguish enacted law, regulations, policy, strategy, guidance, political statements, campaign positions, and third-party interpretation
• Identify areas of potential alignment, tension, dependency, or uncertainty
• Avoid treating policy aspirations as funded or implemented programs
• Avoid providing legal interpretations or predicting official decisions
• Route legal, regulatory, procurement, treaty, sanctions, or formal policy questions for qualified review
• Explain how policy context may affect project sequencing or information needs without claiming approval

Political-Economy Analysis

• Research relevant public-sector, private-sector, development, institutional, and economic relationships
• Examine incentives, resource dependencies, governance structures, capacity constraints, distributional considerations, and implementation conditions
• Distinguish structural analysis from judgments about individual motives
• Avoid unsupported claims concerning corruption, political intent, institutional competence, instability, or stakeholder behavior
• Use careful and evidence-based language for politically or reputationally sensitive matters
• Identify alternative interpretations and limitations
• Preserve source context and distinguish allegations from verified findings
• Escalate potentially defamatory, legally sensitive, or high-risk conclusions for appropriate review

Regional and International Context

• Research East African, African Union, multilateral, bilateral, and international frameworks relevant to assigned infrastructure or development questions
• Distinguish national, county, regional, continental, and international authority
• Identify cross-border dependencies, standards, financing relationships, development priorities, and institutional linkages
• Avoid treating regional frameworks as automatically binding or operational at the local level
• Identify where international models require adaptation to Kenyan conditions
• Incorporate regional and African scholarship, institutional publications, and locally grounded analysis where available
• Avoid centering external perspectives when authoritative local or regional evidence is available
• Explain the limitations of applying evidence from other jurisdictions

Strategic Options and Decision Support

• Develop supervised strategic options based on approved objectives and available evidence
• Define each option’s purpose, assumptions, dependencies, advantages, disadvantages, risks, reversibility, timing, and information requirements
• Apply explicit comparison criteria
• Avoid presenting a preferred option as inevitable or risk-free
• Distinguish no-action, defer, research-first, pilot, partnership, and alternative-path options where relevant
• Identify decisions that cannot responsibly be made using available information
• Explain material tradeoffs and distributional considerations
• Prepare concise internal decision-support memoranda
• Route decisions requiring external authority or professional judgment through designated channels

Scenario Analysis

• Develop proportionate scenarios concerning relevant institutional, policy, partnership, funding, or implementation conditions
• Identify scenario drivers, assumptions, indicators, implications, and possible responses
• Distinguish scenarios from predictions and forecasts
• Avoid sensational, alarmist, or politically partisan framing
• Test whether scenarios include plausible alternative outcomes
• Identify early-warning indicators that can be monitored using appropriate public or authorized information
• Coordinate with the Monitoring, Risk and Continuity Lead on risk and continuity implications
• Clearly document uncertainty, limitations, and matters requiring further validation

Country and Context Briefings

• Prepare clear, source-supported briefings concerning relevant Kenyan and regional conditions
• Distinguish country-level context from county, municipal, community, sectoral, and site-specific conditions
• Avoid treating Kenya or Africa as a uniform political, cultural, economic, or infrastructure environment
• Avoid deficit-based, paternalistic, extractive, stereotypical, or decontextualized framing
• Accurately represent Kenyan institutions, expertise, priorities, and decision-making authority
• Identify where desk research must be supplemented through authorized local expertise, consultation, or field validation
• Avoid implying local demand, consent, endorsement, participation, or partnership that has not been established
• Preserve material historical, institutional, and cultural context

Public-Source Monitoring

• Monitor approved public sources for material developments relevant to assigned questions
• Record publication date, event date, issuing source, status, and likely relevance
• Distinguish confirmed developments from proposals, rumors, commentary, and preliminary reporting
• Avoid excessive collection or monitoring unrelated to a defined project purpose
• Do not use deceptive identities, restricted databases, unauthorized access, covert methods, or private personal accounts
• Produce concise updates focused on material changes and implications
• Avoid presenting absence of public information as evidence that an event did not occur
• Escalate time-sensitive or materially contradictory information through designated channels

Strategic Briefing and Writing

• Draft institutional profiles, country-context notes, political-economy analyses, scenario memoranda, strategic-options papers, stakeholder maps, and briefing materials
• Use neutral, precise, and audience-appropriate language
• Distinguish background, evidence, analysis, implications, options, recommendations, and unresolved questions
• Preserve material qualifications, uncertainties, and source limitations
• Avoid advocacy, lobbying language, unsupported geopolitical conclusions, or speculative claims stated as fact
• Coordinate with the Chief Research and Editorial Director on research and editorial standards
• Coordinate with the Evidence and Quality Assurance Lead on material claims
• Revise work in response to documented feedback

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Support strategy and international-context needs across research, funding, risk, policy, communications, implementation, and technical workstreams
• Coordinate with the Funding and PPP Integration Lead on relevant institutions and partnership pathways
• Coordinate with the Business Development & Capital Markets Analyst on market and institutional mapping
• Coordinate with the Monitoring, Risk and Continuity Lead on scenario, dependency, and political-risk questions
• Coordinate with communications contributors on accurate and respectful external-facing language
• Identify inconsistent terminology, assumptions, or institutional descriptions across workstreams
• Escalate substantive conflicts in evidence, interpretation, policy status, or stakeholder characterization
• Maintain usable source and handoff documentation

SUPERVISION, FEEDBACK, AND REVISION

The Strategy & International Relations Analyst will receive assignments, guidance, and feedback from designated project or workstream leadership.

The analyst may coordinate closely with the Chief Research and Editorial Director, Evidence and Quality Assurance Lead, Funding and PPP Integration Lead, Monitoring, Risk and Continuity Lead, Program Director, and relevant policy, research, or business-development contributors.

The educational workflow is expected to include:

• Initial orientation to Project Guardian’s scope, status, research standards, political neutrality, authority limits, and confidentiality requirements
• Defined assignments connected to the role’s learning objectives
• Access to approved templates, examples, sources, and project context
• Scheduled or milestone-based supervisory review
• Written, annotated, or otherwise documented feedback
• Opportunities to ask questions and clarify expectations
• Reasonable opportunities to revise substantive work
• Progressively more complex assignments where supported by demonstrated readiness
• Periodic reflection on professional development and learning progress
• A final review or evaluation where appropriate

Feedback may address question framing, source quality, institutional understanding, strategic reasoning, scenario discipline, neutrality, contextual awareness, cultural respect, analytical writing, ethical judgment, collaboration, and the participant’s ability to incorporate revisions.

EXPECTED EDUCATIONAL OUTPUTS

Depending on project needs, participant readiness, source availability, workstream placement, and supervisory direction, outputs may include:

• Strategic research plans
• Institutional and stakeholder maps
• Kenyan and regional institution profiles
• Policy and strategy reviews
• Political-economy analyses
• Regional and international framework summaries
• Country and context briefings
• Strategic-options memoranda
• Scenario analyses
• Assumption, dependency, and uncertainty registers
• Public-source monitoring summaries
• Early-warning indicator recommendations
• Comparative jurisdictional analyses
• Decision-support briefs
• Source registers and annotated research files
• Handoff and unresolved-question records
• Substantive original research, analysis, and writing

Outputs are educational and developmental materials. Their production does not guarantee that they will be adopted, externally distributed, published, implemented, or used to make a final strategic decision.

PERFORMANCE AND LEARNING ASSESSMENT

Progress may be assessed according to:

• Clarity and appropriateness of strategic research questions
• Quality, authority, relevance, and diversity of sources
• Accuracy of institutional, policy, and regional analysis
• Ability to distinguish verified information from inference, assumptions, scenarios, and predictions
• Quality and proportionality of strategic options
• Transparency concerning uncertainty, limitations, and alternative interpretations
• Political neutrality and avoidance of unsupported or inflammatory claims
• Respect for Kenyan institutions, communities, knowledge, and stakeholder authority
• Appropriate recognition of local, regional, and jurisdictional differences
• Clarity and professionalism of written materials
• Compliance with confidentiality, attribution, source-verification, and responsible-tool requirements
• Appropriate escalation of matters requiring specialist review
• Ability to receive, evaluate, and incorporate feedback
• Reliability in meeting agreed milestones or communicating constraints early
• Growth against the stated learning objectives

Assessment is intended to support learning and program administration. It is not a diplomatic, intelligence, lobbying, foreign-policy, political-risk, legal, or national-security credential.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

Candidates may be undergraduate or graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, recent graduates, alumni, or early-career professionals. Relevant classroom, volunteer, internship, military, community, entrepreneurial, or professional experience may be considered. No single academic major is required.

Relevant academic areas may include international relations, political science, public policy, public administration, international development, political economy, economics, African studies, geography, history, sociology, security studies, diplomacy, law, or related interdisciplinary fields.

Strong candidates will demonstrate:

• Strong research, critical-reading, analytical, organizational, and written-communication skills
• Interest or experience in international relations, policy analysis, political economy, institutional research, regional studies, or strategic planning
• Ability to assess complex information without overstating certainty
• Ability to distinguish formal authority, published mandate, influence, and speculation
• Comfort evaluating competing interpretations and incomplete evidence
• Sound judgment concerning political sensitivity, neutrality, confidentiality, and reputational risk
• Respect for local knowledge, cultural context, and legitimate decision-making authority
• Ability to communicate complex institutional or geopolitical information clearly
• Willingness to document sources, accept feedback, and revise substantive work
• Reliability when collaborating across disciplines and time zones

Kenya, East Africa, African Union, infrastructure, development-finance, or international-development experience may be helpful but is not required.

Foreign-language ability may be helpful for particular sources but is not required. Applicants should not represent language proficiency beyond their actual ability.

Applicants are not expected to possess diplomatic status, government experience, a security clearance, or formal political-risk credentials.

APPLICATION MATERIALS

Applicants should submit through Handshake:

• A current résumé
• A cover letter explaining their interest in Project Guardian and describing relevant strategy, international-relations, policy, regional, research, academic, or transferable experience
• One relevant work sample, such as a policy brief, country analysis, strategic-options memo, international-relations paper, institutional analysis, scenario analysis, research presentation, or comparable academic, professional, volunteer, or independent work

Applicants should remove or redact confidential, classified, controlled, proprietary, personally identifiable, restricted, privileged, or third-party information from submitted samples.

Applicants must not submit classified information, export-controlled information, confidential government material, sensitive operational information, private intelligence products, or documents they are not authorized to share.

If the applicant’s strongest work was completed collaboratively, the applicant should briefly identify their individual contribution.

A prior professional work sample is not required. Academic, volunteer, independent, simulated, or appropriately redacted work is acceptable.

SELECTION PROCESS

Initial screening will be asynchronous. Applications will be assessed based on demonstrated alignment, research ability, strategic reasoning, neutrality, contextual awareness, communication quality, judgment, learning potential, and the relevance of submitted materials.

Finalists may be invited to complete a brief, time-limited educational evaluation exercise using hypothetical or publicly available information. The exercise may ask the applicant to map several institutions, distinguish evidence from assumptions, develop two strategic options, or prepare a short scenario analysis with limitations.

Any selection exercise will be designed solely to evaluate the applicant’s reasoning and communication. It will not involve confidential project information, be used as uncompensated production work, or be incorporated into Project Guardian deliverables without separate written permission and appropriate arrangements.

Live conversations will be limited to finalists or circumstances requiring clarification. References may be requested selectively. Reasonable accommodations are available during the selection process.

Priority application deadline: October 2, 2026. The posting may close earlier or later based on application volume, institutional review timing, or program needs.

POLITICAL NEUTRALITY, LOBBYING, AND EXTERNAL-ACTIVITY LIMITATIONS

Project Guardian research must not be used through this internship to support or oppose a political party, candidate, campaign, or electoral outcome.

Unless separately authorized and lawfully structured, the analyst may not:

• Lobby or attempt to influence legislation, regulation, procurement, or official action
• Contact government officials, political parties, diplomatic missions, international organizations, communities, funders, or prospective partners
• Represent Project Guardian at political, diplomatic, governmental, or international forums
• Make political contributions or endorsements on behalf of the company or project
• Draft or distribute partisan campaign material
• Use deceptive identities or covert methods
• Seek classified, controlled, privileged, hacked, leaked, or unlawfully obtained information
• Recruit confidential sources or request nonpublic official information
• Conduct surveillance or monitoring of private individuals
• Make claims concerning national security, corruption, sanctions, political intent, or institutional misconduct without an appropriate evidentiary and review basis
• Present personal political opinions as Project Guardian’s institutional position

Nothing in these limitations restricts a participant’s lawful personal civic activity conducted in an individual capacity, provided it is separate from Project Guardian and does not use project resources or imply project endorsement.

CONFIDENTIALITY, ATTRIBUTION, AND RESPONSIBLE TOOL USE

Participants may encounter confidential, preliminary, proprietary, sensitive, licensed, or access-controlled information. Such information may be used only for authorized program purposes and handled according to applicable instructions.

Participants must:

• Protect confidential, personal, proprietary, licensed, and restricted information
• Use only authorized systems, accounts, storage locations, databases, and transfer methods
• Access only materials reasonably necessary for assigned work
• Avoid uploading confidential, proprietary, restricted, political, diplomatic, or stakeholder information to unapproved third-party platforms
• Preserve citations, source records, research notes, review history, and version information
• Distinguish original work from quoted, adapted, collaborative, translated, generated, or tool-assisted material
• Disclose material use of generative artificial intelligence, machine translation, or automated tools when requested
• Independently verify institutional facts, quotations, translations, dates, policy status, and source interpretations
• Avoid fabricating sources, events, affiliations, relationships, stakeholder views, endorsements, or findings
• Obtain approval before externally sharing project materials or including them in a portfolio
• Report suspected confidentiality, access, attribution, political-sensitivity, or information-handling problems promptly

Automated tools may support learning, brainstorming, translation, organization, public-source research, or drafting only when permitted. They may not replace critical source review, contextual judgment, confidentiality obligations, or responsibility for submitted work.

Machine translations must be verified before they support material conclusions. Restricted information may not be entered into public or unauthorized artificial-intelligence systems.

PROFESSIONAL AND REGULATORY LIMITATIONS

This internship does not authorize the participant to provide or represent that they are providing diplomatic, lobbying, intelligence, national-security, political-risk, legal, sanctions, regulatory, procurement, or foreign-policy advice or services.

Institutional maps, country briefings, scenarios, policy reviews, and strategic recommendations are educational research and decision-support materials. They are not official government assessments, diplomatic communications, intelligence products, legal opinions, sanctions determinations, security assessments, or guarantees of political, regulatory, partnership, or implementation outcomes.

Questions requiring specialized professional judgment must be identified and routed for qualified review.

REPORTING AND AUTHORITY

The analyst will receive assignments and feedback from designated project or workstream leadership. Overall operational coordination remains with the Deputy Program and Operations Manager.

The analyst may:

• Complete approved internal international-relations, institutional, policy, and strategic research
• Develop internal maps, profiles, scenarios, briefings, comparisons, and recommendations
• Monitor specifically approved public sources
• Request clarification and authorized project information
• Identify assumptions, dependencies, uncertainties, risks, and specialist-review needs
• Recommend additional authorized research
• Collaborate with assigned internal participants
• Revise work in response to documented feedback

The analyst may not independently:

• Conduct lobbying, advocacy, diplomacy, intelligence collection, or government relations
• Contact governments, officials, political parties, diplomatic missions, communities, international organizations, funders, partners, or other external stakeholders
• Represent the company, project, university, or any institution externally
• Publish, distribute, or release project materials
• Issue public statements
• Make legal, financial, political, employment, procurement, partnership, technical, or contractual commitments
• Approve final policy, legal, diplomatic, political-risk, or stakeholder conclusions
• Promise funding, partnership, governmental support, implementation, academic credit, employment, publication, or any project outcome
• Authorize another participant to exercise any of these powers

Final decisions concerning external engagement, political or institutional positioning, publication, partnerships, strategic direction, and formal representations remain with authorized program leadership and, where necessary, qualified professionals.

All external outreach, advocacy, submissions, representations, commitments, and releases require prior authorization.

ELIGIBILITY AND INSTITUTIONAL CONDITIONS

Applicants must be able to participate remotely during the stated program period and communicate reliably in an asynchronous-first environment.

Students seeking academic credit must contact their institution and initiate any required approval, registration, learning-agreement, or internship-verification process. Institutional approval and academic credit are not guaranteed.

Where required, participation may be conditioned on completion of appropriate institutional documentation, confidentiality agreements, information-handling acknowledgments, intellectual-property terms, conflict disclosures, acceptable-use requirements, or other reasonable program documentation.

International students and other applicants are responsible for confirming with their institution or qualified adviser whether participation is consistent with applicable academic, immigration, authorization, funding, or institutional requirements. Morsby, Gorman, McCarthy LLC does not provide immigration, visa, tax, legal, political, or employment-authorization advice.

EQUAL CONSIDERATION AND ACCOMMODATIONS

Morsby, Gorman, McCarthy LLC intends to consider applicants based on role-related qualifications, demonstrated readiness, learning potential, and program needs. Reasonable accommodations may be requested for the application process or internship experience.

Applicants are encouraged to describe relevant academic, professional, volunteer, military, community, entrepreneurial, caregiving, independent, or lived experience when it demonstrates transferable skills applicable to the role.