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| Director-General’s Opening Statement to the 34th session of the Industrial Development Board |
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| Monday,May 19,2008 Posted: 21:26 BJT(26 GMT) | | From:UNIDO Article type:Reproduced |
Excellencies, Honourable Ministers,
Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is my great pleasure to warmly welcome you to the 34th session of the Industrial
Development Board.
Let me start by expressing my gratitude to the outgoing Bureau, and in particular to
Mr. Victor Zagrekov of the Russian Federation who chaired the 33rd session of the
Board, and to Ambassador Padilla Menéndez of Guatemala, who subsequently
assumed the Presidency. Their commitment and leadership assured the constructive
and smooth conduct of the last session of the Board and the work of the Bureau in the
intervening period.
I also wish to congratulate the new President, Ambassador Bazoberry Otero of
Bolivia, as well as the new bureau on their election. I am confident that under your
able leadership, Mr. President, our session will come to a successful conclusion.
On behalf of UNIDO I wish to express our deepest sympathies to the Governments
and people of China and Myanmar in connection with the recent calamities that their
nations have faced. I recall that Chengdu was the first city I visited in China five
years ago when it hosted the UNIDO Global Biotechnology Consultations. I was
therefore greatly touched when I saw on television some of the places that I had
actually been to.
Mr. President,
Distinguished delegates,
Focus on strategic issues
As ever, you will be faced with an extensive agenda and challenging work schedule at
this session of the Board. The Secretariat has sought to facilitate your work by
providing you with a comprehensive yet concise set of documents containing the
detailed information you will need for your discussions. Of course, my staff and I
shall remain at your disposal, both in the plenary sessions and in the informal
consultations, to provide you with any additional clarifications or supplementary
information that you may require.
At the same time, the availability of this documentation permits me to focus my own
statement on a number of strategic issues that I deem it important to highlight. My
address today will be in three sections, which I have called “The Past”, “The Present”
and “The Future”. Even as we meet here today, in the comfortable surroundings of
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the Vienna International Centre located in the prosperous and secure capital of our
host country, Austria, the world outside is beset with a number of crises – climate
change; increasing energy costs and soaring food prices. These are converging to
undermine many of the developmental and poverty-reduction achievements of recent
years, and threaten to tip the world, and in particular many developing countries, into
a state of instability and insecurity.
THE PAST
I will devote most of my statement to these strategic issues, but let me begin with a
brief review of our past performance in 2006-2007. I deliberately use the phrase “our
performance”, by which I mean to include the UNIDO staff, our management and
you, our shareholders, because we achieved this together. During the last session of
the General Conference you received our publication UNIDO Forging Ahead. It was
our attempt to present our achievements. For this session of the IDB we have
submitted the Annual Report for 2007 to you, which has again been presented in the
attractive new style initiated last year, and which provides additional information on
our performance. With that, you have a detailed record of what we achieved together
in the past biennium – my first biennium as your Director-General.
Permit me, nevertheless, to highlight a few points.
2007 Performance
First of all, as you will conclude from the Annual Report for 2007, our financial
performance in 2007 was remarkable. In terms of funds mobilized for technical
cooperation, we achieved an all-time record in UNIDO’s 40-year history, with a sum
of US$ 172.7 million, more than US$ 50 million higher than in 2006. As a result of
this successful resource mobilization drive, the funds available for future technical
cooperation activities increased from $227.4 million at the end of 2006 to $280.1
million by the end of 2007, another all-time record for UNIDO. Finally, the use of
these resources for delivering technical cooperation programmes and projects also
recorded a significant increase, from US$ 113.7 million in 2006 to US$ 117.3 in
2007.
In setting these records we were able to draw on the strong confidence that you have
continued to have in us, and on your resulting willingness to finance our programmes.
For that we are very grateful.
MTPF 2008-2011
On the implementation of the medium-term programme framework for 2008-2011, I
am pleased to report that there has been a smooth programmatic transition from the
previous MTPF for 2006-2009. This is as true of the South-South Cooperation
programme and the regional programme for Latin America and the Caribbean, as it is
for the other programmes. With regard to the issue of UNIDO’s direct access to the
Global Environment Facility, I can report with pleasure that the negotiations on this
issue have been successfully concluded, and that we are well on our way to meeting
the fiduciary standards upon which the final implementation of our agreement with
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GEF is contingent. A detailed overview of this subject is given in document
IDB.34/6.
United Nations system-wide coherence
On the issue of system-wide coherence, you have had first-hand experience of our
involvement and efforts through the high-level consultations that we hosted here in
Vienna. They attracted some 300 participants, including the UN Deputy Secretary-
General and the Co-Chairs of the General Assembly consultations on system-wide
coherence being conducted in New York. Our contribution through the hosting of
these consultations has been widely appreciated, and we thank you for your support in
organizing them. A report on this issue is included in document IDB.34/7.
Thirteenth session of the General Conference
At the end of the last session of the General Conference I suggested that we should
consider convening the next session of the Conference in a developing region. I am
very pleased to report that since December a number of countries have shown a strong
interest in hosting the next Conference, and we have received official communications
to this effect from Morocco and Nigeria. I am sure you will decide very soon how to
proceed towards the next session of the General Conference.
THE PRESENT
Challenges facing the development community
I took office more than two years ago on a platform of continuity and growth, which
has yielded very good results. Like a jet plane, we have taken off, thanks to the
reforms we have undertaken in the past 8-10 years, and thanks to you. We have now
reached cruising altitude, but as we move forward, we now face some powerful
headwinds that are causing some turbulence. We hope that they remain headwinds
and do not become crosswinds and shake the whole system.
I felt it was necessary to bring these headwinds to your notice, because they represent
serious challenges for the development community. Since the beginning of this year I
have been called twice to New York. The first time was in February, when I was
invited to participate in a General Assembly debate on climate change as a follow-up
to the Bali Conference, which the Secretary-General and the President of the General
Assembly felt necessary to convene. In April I was called to the General Assembly
again to participate in another debate on the prospects for achieving the Millennium
Development Goals. On this occasion I was given the singular honour of chairing the
first panel discussion after the Secretary-General’s statement.
In my statement to you today I want to highlight four major issues, some of which the
outgoing President of your Board and the new President have already touched on. I
feel that I should bring them to your attention because they are being debated very
heavily in various international fora, and every now and again we are asked about the
role we can play to resolve them. These four major challenges, which some people
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refer to as “crises”, appear so serious that they have begun to dent even my natural
optimism.
Climate change
The most significant of these crises, and possibly the most pervasive and irreversible,
is the accelerating process of global climate change. We are presented with evidence
on an almost daily basis both of shocking new developments and of their implications
for the future of our planet. We hear of the threats posed to the diversity of life, with
a recent study showing that even a modest rise in global temperatures could result in a
dramatic reduction of tropical species.
The climate change debate is proceeding, even after the Bali Conference. In this
connection I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Government of
Indonesia, which accorded excellent hospitality to my colleagues and me as
participants in the Bali process. The Secretary-General has also picked up this issue
and we have been asked by the office of the Secretary-General and by our Member
States to provide our own contribution, as an agency within the UN system, to the
ongoing negotiations in the UNFCCC.
Energy
Beyond climate change, we are now faced with another crisis – the energy crisis.
This crisis is significant because it has widespread implications, especially for
industry. For one thing, the use of energy is a leading source of carbon emissions.
There is widespread concern about these emissions as they affect climate change, and
it is likely that many countries will adopt high standards to reduce them. This will
have a significant impact on the future shape of industry, as it tries to adopt energy
efficiency measures. Industry will change. It will have to change.
New technologies will be deployed, and new ways of producing will be adopted. In
addition, measures will be taken that will affect trading relations. The EU, for
example, is leading the way in fighting climate change, and has introduced significant
standards on its industries. It is clear that other regions will follow this example. Let
us look at the implications. If the EU imposes these requirements on their own
industry, industry in other countries will have to follow because the EU will not waive
the requirements on the industries of other countries. I know from my own visits to
two Asian countries recently that they are looking to establish traceability systems
because they know that buyers in Europe are coming under pressure from NGOs to
take account of their suppliers’ carbon footprint within the value chain. There have
also been documented cases where some NGOs have even demanded that the carbon
footprint of vegetable exports from Africa to Europe should be checked.
This is real. This is happening. It has serious implications for the future shape of
industry, down to the sectoral level. Different industrial sectors will be faced with
different sets of new environmental and emissions standards. We as UNIDO will
have to do analytical work and engage in this process of change, and be ready to
provide support to developing countries to deal with these challenges.
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The price of oil
The last time I checked this morning on CNN, the price of oil was more than US$ 126
per barrel. Why is this significant? If you looked at Newsweek last week, there was a
little section that tried to predict the implications of an oil price of US$ 200 per barrel.
Some economists argue that this could result in a reversal of the trend towards
globalization and an increasing trend towards regionalization. The cost of
transportation will be so high that it could cause a comparative disadvantage even if a
country has low labour costs. This is already beginning to have an impact on
corporate decisions about where to locate production. This will have significant
implications for industry, in terms of costs of production, in terms of where
production will be located, and of course in terms of where jobs will be created in the
future. As an Organization to promote industrial development, we cannot pretend that
this is not happening. We have to be part of it and help our Member States face the
challenges.
If you look at this issue from the perspective of developing countries, it has serious
implications. Think for a minute of Ethiopia, Mali, or Burkina Faso, who have to
purchase oil at high prices and then truck it to their cities. This is already having a
devastating impact on the growth prospects and development patterns of a number of
developing countries. The World Bank predicts that there will be a reduction in
growth rates of 3-4 per cent, and even higher in some countries, as a result of the high
oil prices. In the case of Africa, the best economic performance recorded by African
countries in the past fifteen years was in the last two years, 2006-2007, when they
grew at some 5-5.5%. If the World Bank’s prediction of a 3-4 per cent, or even a 5
per cent cut in growth is correct, then growth will be zero or negative for some
countries. This clearly has major implications for the achievement of the Millennium
Development Goals.
Food
Let me shift to the third issue – food. Some people call it a food crisis. Some say it is
not a food crisis, but a food price crisis. Whatever it is, there is no escaping the fact
that there is a problem with food. We have seen riots in a number of countries
because food is a sensitive product. I realize that this topic was not on your agenda
for this meeting, but I am very grateful that you have agreed to add it to the agenda. I
felt it was necessary that you do so, because if you go back to the Business Plan that
you gave UNIDO in 1997 as part of your reform of the Organization, you stressed
yourselves that UNIDO should give a special priority to agro-industries.
I therefore believe that if there are major changes that could happen to the food
situation, it is legitimate for me to bring this to your attention. We need to ask
ourselves the question what this will mean for UNIDO’s work, and for the assistance
that developing countries are requesting from UNIDO. I am very pleased that my
raising this issue has provoked some positive responses and discussions. You may or
may not have reached any conclusions, but I hope that the discussions will continue.
Some people believe that the answer is to collect money quickly and feed the people.
That would solve the problems for today, but it will not solve subsequent problems.
All available indicators, including the documentation that I have recently submitted to
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you, suggest that this current food situation is very different from the past. In 1974-
76 we had the problems with drought in the Sahel and other places, and some other
shocks. We were able to deal with them within 2-3 years. This crisis is different
because it is caused by the convergence of a number of issues: climate change,
energy, and some other issues including speculation. These are huge phenomena, and
they will be with us for a while. We also see that demand conditions have changed.
Thus, this particular food situation is not going to be reversed easily.
Economists and Nobel laureates like Bhagwati and others have been coming out in
the past two weeks with articles saying that this trend will be sustained for a while.
Therefore the medium and long-term solutions are critical, and that is where UNIDO
comes in. I must confess to you, however, that we have not received much funding
for our work in the field of agro-industry during the past 15 years. Mr. Carlos
Magariños raised this issue with you four years ago. We get a lot of funding for
environmental activities, but we don’t get as much funding for the poverty-related
areas such as agro-industry and the development of small and medium enterprises.
The funding we do receive in these areas is to do feasibility studies about the potential
for agro-industry in a country; or the potential for agro-industries to create jobs, or the
potential for investment in agro-industry, but we don’t get money to make these
investments happen. We don’t get funding to build the pilot plants recommended by
the feasibility studies.
I know this, because when I first joined UNIDO in 1996-97, I faced an embarrassing
situation. The Director-General at that time, Mr. Mauricio y Campos visited Mali,
and the President of Mali said to him that he needed technology to process the
country’s fruits because about 40% of it gets rotten. We did a feasibility study but we
could not get the money we needed – half a million dollars – to build a pilot plant to
help these people progress. We have estimates from our work, and from the work of
FAO and others, that in some countries post-harvest losses amount to 30 per cent, 50
per cent, or even 60 per cent, depending upon the commodity. If we are talking about
food availability, even capturing part of this loss would solve the food availability
problem.
Our experience shows that these are the most difficult programmes to get funding for.
But it must be remembered that the poorest of the poor, the LDCs, are all agrarian
economies that depend on agriculture. This notwithstanding, it is very difficult for us
as an agency to raise money to support the development of SMEs or agro-industries. I
am putting this to you because if we are going to be part of the long-term solution to
the current food crisis, we are going to need different levels of funding for these
activities, because these are the activities that will also fight poverty. The World
Bank report on agriculture issued in October last year showed clearly that 74% of the
world’s poor are still to be found in the rural agricultural sector. To remove them
from poverty we need value addition and supply chains. This is why it is so relevant
for you to discuss this issue.
Threat of instability
We could have ignored this issue and gone ahead with business as usual, but in all
conscience, I could not do that. I had to bring these issues to your attention. We need
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your help, and your recognition that this crisis will stay for a while and cause even
greater misery to many of the world’s poor. And that it will create global instability.
When all of these challenges – related to climate change, energy and food – converge,
such instability becomes almost inevitable. Many developing countries are fragile
and shaky. The faces of the hungry have also changed. Demographic statistics tell us
that more people now live in the cities. It is therefore the young in the urban areas
that are now agitating because of all these factors that I have mentioned. It is
affecting global stability. This is why the Secretary-General has decided to set up a
task force in his office under Sir John Holmes to look at the food crisis and its
relationship with all the other issues I have mentioned. A number of agencies are
involved in this task force already, and some us are actively providing it with the
support and inputs it needs.
I served as Minister of Trade, Industry and State Enterprises in Sierra Leone. I had
the difficult task of managing all the sensitive commodities: Rice, petrol and flour.
When the price of these commodities rises, it generates social stresses. This is
happening on a daily basis today in the poorest of the poor. For example, UNICEF
has told the Secretary-General in front of me that the democracies of Sierra Leone and
Liberia are very shaky. They depend to almost 90 per cent on rice. When the price of
rice goes up by 80 per cent, as it has done, this precipitates a crisis. The conflict in
Liberia started in 1980 from a simple demonstration over the price of rice.
The issue of food and global stability is critical, and we must address it. It is for these
medium and long-term solutions that we need you. I was in Kuwait over the weekend
and met with the Prime Minister and other Ministers, and they are already looking at
this issue. The Prime Minister told me that they are looking to invest in agri-business
in Viet Nam, and are looking at the potential of Sudan as a source of agricultural
production among the Arab countries. I also know from the media that China, India
and other countries are looking at the possibilities of investing in agri-business in
Africa and other regions. This is happening because the facts on the ground are
changing and we will have to respond accordingly. Our business model will have to
change.
At this stage I would like to thank the government of India, which hosted the first
Global Agro-Industry Forum – a joint effort of UNIDO, FAO and IFAD – last month.
We had planned this event a year and a half ago, well before the food crisis hit,
because we wanted to highlight the difficulty we had in getting funding for
investments in agri-business and agro-industry. We will continue our work, and we
will look again at the recommendations of that Forum about what can be done for
agro-industries.
This, then, is the present. It looks very difficult and gloomy. As I said with regard to
UNIDO and yourselves: We are at a cruising altitude, but these headwinds are
coming. They could reverse the gains that we – all of us – have made in the
international development scene. They could reverse the gains we have made towards
achieving the Millennium Development Goals, and they could reverse our gains in
promoting global stability.
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THE FUTURE
New programmatic initiatives
Let us look to the future. Where do we go from here? How should we in UNIDO
position ourselves to begin to deal with some of these issues? You have seen already
that I have made some alterations to the structure of the Organization. I am now
introducing a number of programmatic initiatives associated with these structural
refinements.
Energy
At the end of February I introduced a new branch to deal with energy issues in their
totality – renewable energy, energy access, and energy efficiency. We already know
from the IPCC report on climate change that one of the quickest ways to deal with
climate change is to improve energy efficiency, and we know that many countries are
innovating and looking at this particular issue. We are now in the process of
recruiting staff for that branch, including a new Director. I am very grateful to some
Member States who have already expressed their support, including a potential
willingness to provide funding, and in some cases offers for the secondment of staff to
help us with our work. Some of you have, in fact, encouraged me to hold a regular
dialogue on these energy issues, and we hope to be able to do that.
Here again I am very pleased with the foundation we laid in the past biennium. I
would like to thank the Government of Malaysia for hosting the major Global
Conference on Biofuels last year, which looked at second- and third-generation
technologies. I also thank the Government of Ethiopia for hosting, together with the
Government of Brazil, a regional conference for Africa on biofuels. This month we
have also just concluded a major conference on renewable energy in Senegal, which
was co-financed by the Government of Germany. Furthermore, we have hosted in
Croatia a discussion on bioenergy as it relates to Eastern Europe. Two weeks ago we
repeated that in Ukraine. And on coming Friday some of us will leave for Brazil to
review again the global renewable energy landscape. I express my thanks to all of
these Governments, and to you, the Ambassadors from these countries, for working
with us to deal with these issues. Here again, UNIDO has been far in the forefront.
We will continue our work in this area. We also welcome the support we are
receiving from the Government of Turkey on hydrogen energy. Now that I chair UN
Energy, I hear at every debate that hydrogen energy is the energy of the future. I am
very pleased, again on behalf of your Organization, that we started work in this area
5-6 years ago with the support of the Government of Turkey. In a few weeks I will be
going to Turkey again to continue our discussion on building a new complex to house
this important project.
We will be contributing as an agency to the next COP 14 negotiations on climate
change in Poland, and will focus there on energy efficiency as our contribution,
together with the International Atomic Energy Agency and some other agencies in our
group. We have also been invited by the Government of Denmark to participate in a
discussion on trade and climate change, which will, of course, cover energy as well.
We thank the Government of Denmark for the invitation.
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On UN Energy in particular I want to report to you that so far the entire system has
been pleased with the leadership that UNIDO has provided on energy issues. We
have had several meetings; we have hosted the other agencies her in Vienna within a
very short period; and we are already participating in some global discussions on
energy. We have received indications from GEF that it wants UNIDO to formulate a
very large programme for energy for the UN system valued at almost US$ 50 million.
This request came just two weeks ago. For us it represents a major recognition of
UNIDO’s capacity to lead an effort to formulate such a programme. We have also
received a commitment from the UN Foundation to provide us with some funding to
enable us to acquire additional expertise to deal with these energy issues. I am
grateful for this support. In addition, we have held discussions with the Governments
of Austria, Russia and some other countries for their expertise to strengthen our
efforts in this area.
Green industry
We will soon launch an initiative on green industry. As I mentioned to you,
international standards for emissions and other environmental regulations are bound
be adopted at some time in the future. We know already that research institutions are
beginning to look at the implications for the configuration of industry and technology.
Prior to launching this initiative we have been consulting for eight months with some
Member States and some of their experts. We will provide a special briefing for the
Member States in a month or two on this initiative.
The initiative is based on the work we have been doing in the field of cleaner
production. We want to expand it, together with UNEP, and have already developed
a very ambitious proposal worth almost US$ 60 million to present to the EU in
Brussels. We call it Cleaner Production Plus. This initiative will also cover our work
in the Montreal Protocol area, which benefits many of the transition economies as
well as the economies of Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean. This initiative
will look at the future of industrial technologies – which kinds are appropriate? How
accessible will they be? How will they be financed? We are currently engaged in
further internal discussions on this new initiative on greening industry, and will give a
presentation to you when this preliminary work has been concluded. It is our hope
that this initiative will also receive your support.
Reducing UNIDO’s climate footprint
In addition, we are looking at reducing our own carbon footprint. We learnt this from
H.E. Kofi Annan, who was once asked by a journalist what the UN was doing to
reduce its own emissions. We feel that we should make the VIC carbon-friendly and
carbon-neutral if we are going to be credible. Our programmes will also have to be
made carbon-neutral, and the Secretary-General has now issued a requirement for all
agencies to report on their efforts to reduce emissions.
Partnership with international financial institutions (IFIs)
We have introduced a new unit in our structure called the International Financial
Institutions Partnership Unit. As I mentioned in my statement to the General
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Conference, we want to build partnerships with international financial institutions.
We have already made considerable progress in this regard. For example, UNIDO
has already engaged in two programme formulation missions with IFAD. I have had
meetings with the President of the World Bank, which has also sent one of their vice
presidents here to identify the scope for further partnerships with us, particularly with
regard to investments in agri-business and small and medium enterprise development.
I am also pleased to report that we have been in discussions with the Government of
Argentina for two months to implement for the first time a US$ 74 million loan from
the Inter-American Development Bank to support the development of SMEs. This is
a major achievement, and we thank the Ambassador for his interventions in this
regard. We already have a team in place for this activity. They have just returned
from a mission to Argentina to work out the modalities for our intervention. Finally,
we have also initiated discussions with the Asian Development Bank.
Why is it necessary for us to interact with these institutions? I have consulted with
some of you over the past year and have listened to your comments. The fact is that
UNIDO was created, inter alia, to do pilot projects. Through these projects we prove
that countries have a capability to do something. When we prove the viability of such
a pilot programme, we need someone to finance the scaling up. In the case of
Ethiopia, for example, we have shown that Ethiopian companies can produce leather
products that sell in Italy and in Austria. But this refers to only four companies.
Ethiopia needs fifty of these to make an impact in its poverty reduction and wealth
creation efforts. To increase the scale of our work, to scale it up, we need interaction
with the financial institutions. This interaction is now beginning to yield some very
good results.
Aid for trade
The aid for trade initiative has become an important source of development
assistance, irrespective of whether or not the Doha Round succeeds. The EU is
setting aside almost US$ 2 billion for aid for trade, and there are a number of bilateral
programmes under the heading of aid for trade. We have been a major player in this
area, and have participated in the design of some programmes. We thank those
Member States that have supported this effort, but now we have to do even more in
this field. We already have requests for assistance and have received funding for
some countries, and WTO is giving us a great deal of encouragement. As you may
remember, Mr. Pascal Lamy came to our General Conference to emphasize the need
for our partnership to enhance the productive sectors in developing countries.
Administrative measures
On the administrative side, we have to change the way UNIDO does business. With
the many challenges we face, we have to change how we operate as well. Sometimes
in the past our response time was too long. To overcome this, we emphasized the
strengthening of our field service. Now we need to build proper administrative
mechanisms for quick response behind the field service. As part of the IPSAS
process, we will therefore launch a scheme we call the Business Process
Reengineering in the next few weeks.
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It is very important for us to improve our administrative processes. In the past, when
we computerized our systems in UNIDO, we simply computerized the old processes.
If a process took seven stages, we just computerized the seven stages. In the new
initiative we are launching now, we want to ask how we can reduce the seven stages
to three. This Business Process Reengineering programme has just been launched,
and I give the credit to our staff in Finance, particularly the young staff we have
recently recruited, who have brought some really innovative ideas. So, as part of
IPSAS, we will develop this programme to speed up the response time and reduce the
bureaucracy within the system while at the same time strengthening our field network.
We are also launching now a major recruitment drive. You may have seen it in the
website. Another thirty or so new staff members are to be recruited into the technical
units to enhance the implementation capacities and skills within the Organization.
These are all major efforts to renew your Organization.
Inter-agency cooperation and coherence
We are also strengthening our partnerships with other organizations. The issues and
challenges that I have raised this morning are all connected. No one agency, no one
country, has a solution for them. We need to act in partnerships if we are going to
address these problems holistically. Our partnership with FAO and IFAD is very
strong, so that all three of us can design the necessary programmes to support agribusiness
and raise the funding. Our partnership with UNDP is also expanding. We
are already discussing partnerships in energy. I will be meeting with UNDP, UNHABITAT
and GEF in the TICAD conference in Japan in two weeks, to continue our
discussions on how to collaborate further on energy issues. We have also joined a
new cluster of agencies that we call the trade and productive sector agencies, which
will include UNCTAD, FAO, UNDP, UNIDO and ITC. We have formally launched
it as a cluster and informed the Secretary-General accordingly, because we see the
need to bring trade and the productive sectors together in order to be able to deal with
the so-called supply side issues as discussed in the Doha Round.
We have also strengthened our partnerships with the private sector. We are
expanding our partnership with Microsoft. Two weeks ago I signed a new partnership
with Hewlett-Packard, which has received some attention because the digital
applications it offers will help in creating the necessary solutions for many of the
challenges we face.
Your Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Illustrative profiles
I have covered quite a lot of ground this morning and highlighted a number of
challenges facing us. But I want to end on an optimistic note. Because of our past
performance we are very confident that your Organization can meet the challenges.
To do so, however, the way we do business will have to change. The kind of funding
we receive will have to be scaled up if we are to make a difference in poor countries.
I have said in New York, in the debate on MDGs on 1 April, that we in UNIDO are
not interested in poverty management. Poverty management is when you move a man
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or woman from a dollar a day to two dollars a day. They are still poor. We can claim
it as a success, but they are still poor. Real poverty eradication has to do with wealth
creation. I am sure that many of you, the Member States, share this position, and this
is why the whole issue of value addition and trade becomes very relevant within
UNIDO’s work.
I have three pictures that I want to show you of two innovative projects we are
implementing, and then I will close.
Pictures 1 and 2 – power generation from rice husks
These pictures are taken in eastern Nigeria. The women are collecting the waste from
rice processing – the rice husk from the processing mill – and taking it to a dump.
There are many such dumpsites in eastern Nigeria, some as high as houses. The
reality is that in Asia, particularly Thailand, this rice husk is used as a source of
energy to generate power in rural communities. We have developed this innovative
project to transfer the Asian experience and Asian expertise to solve a power supply
problem in eastern Nigeria. Our plan is to generate 5 MW of power. To make this
programme even more effective, we have to change the rice mills that the people use
to process the rice, the technology of which is about 40-50 years old. I will therefore
be seeking the support of the Asian Ambassadors – from India, Pakistan and Viet
Nam – to help us get some of the rice milling plants from their countries to help these
people in eastern Nigeria to process their rice more efficiently and generate wealth
within their community. Another innovative element of this project is its possible
scope for emissions trading. We are talking to our friends in Austria about whether
they can use it for emissions credits. We also hope that we will be able to convince
some other industrial countries to help us develop programmes like this. We have
another one in Tanzania using sisal waste to generate power.
Picture 3 – Multi-functional platform
This is another interesting picture of a so-called multi-functional platform. UNIDO
designed this concept back in 1993-1994, as a means of providing an energy source
for a village to facilitate the processing of foodstuffs, power small appliances such as
refrigerators, and provide power for such institutions as clinics and schools, etc. We
developed the prototype and started testing it in Mali. I remember when I first joined
UNIDO as Director of the Africa Bureau I had to demonstrate it in Côte d’Ivoire in
1996. Why is this story interesting? As I mentioned before, we do the technical
work. We do the pilot project. UNDP has picked up this concept now, improved it,
and received US$ 19 million from the Gates Foundation to disseminate it. This
particular model was displayed in Senegal.
Another reason why this particular multi-functional platform is so valuable is that it
uses jatropha oil rather than petroleum. This comes from a plant that grows on
marginal land, which cannot be used for crop production. Research is being
undertaken in several Asian countries to test it as a biofuel. It also grows wild in
many parts of Africa and elsewhere, and holds considerable promise as a source of
energy for the future.
14
Conclusion
I think this is a good way for me to end my statement to you by tying up everything I
have said to technology. Technology is part of the solution for a lot of the problems
we face. We feel that our Organization is very well positioned to address some of
these global issues, and we hope that we can rely on you for the support to deliver our
services effectively.
Thank you very much. |
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