Mission: The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) helps developing countries and countries with economies in transition in their fight against marginalization in today's globalized world. It mobilizes knowledge, skills, information and technology to promote productive employment, a competitive economy and a sound environment.
Background: UNIDO was set up in 1966 and became a specialized agency of the United Nations in 1985. As part of the United Nations common system, UNIDO has responsibility for promoting industrialization throughout the developing world, in cooperation with its 171 Member States. Its headquarters are in Vienna, and it is represented in 35 developing countries. This representation and a number of specialised field offices, for investment and technology promotion and other specific aspects of its work, give UNIDO an active presence in the field.
Core Functions and Services
As a global forum, UNIDO generates and disseminates knowledge relating to industrial matters and provides a platform for the various actors in the public and private sectors, civil society organizations and the policy- making community in general to enhance cooperation, establish dialogue and develop partnerships in order to address the challenges ahead.
As a technical cooperation agency, UNIDO designs and implements programmes to support the industrial development efforts of its clients. It also offers tailor-made specialized support for programme development. The two core functions are both complementary and mutually supportive. On the one hand, experience gained in the technical cooperation work of UNIDO can be shared with policy makers; on the other, the Organization's analytical work shows where technical cooperation will have the greatest impact by helping to define priorities.
The broad programmatic objectives and priorities of UNIDO are given in the Business Plan on the Future Role and Functions of UNIDO endorsed by the seventh session of the General Conference in 1997, in its resolution GC.7/Res.1.
This Business Plan grouped the activities of UNIDO into two areas of concentration: (a) Strengthening industrial capacities, including programmes in support of the global forum function and policy advice; and (b) Cleaner and sustainable industrial development. In addition, while maintaining the universal character and vocation of UNIDO, the Business Plan provided for the Organization's activities to be focused geographically on least developed countries, in particular in Africa; sectorally on agro-based industries; and thematically on small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
UNIDO achieves these objectives through: (a) Integrated programmes (IPs) or country service frameworks (CSFs), based on combinations of its eight service modules or in (b) Stand-alone projects involving only one or two service modules.
UNIDO's eight Service Modules are:
Industrial Governance and Statistics;
Investment and Technology Promotion;
Industrial Competitiveness and Trade;
Private Sector Development;
Agro-Industry;
Sustainable Energy and Climate Change;
Montreal Protocol (substances that deplete the ozone layer);
Environmental management
Integration" within an IP is not just at the level of the Service Modules selected for the programme, it also has to be achieved at the level of donor mechanisms, national counterparts and other development activities in the country or region.
To meet particularly pressing development needs in line with the international development agenda and UNIDO's comparative advantages in the field of industrial development, UNIDO has launched four thematic initiatives to supplement the existing modalities of integrated programmes, country service frameworks and stand-alone projects: The Trade Capacity Building Initiative, launched at the International Conference of Financing for Development (Monterrey, Mexico, March 2002); The Rural Energy for Productive Use Initiative, launched a the World Summit for Sustainable Development (Johannesburg, September 2002); The Post-Crisis Initiative, also presented in September 2002; and The UNIDO / UNDP joint programme of cooperation on private sector development launched in September 2004.
Facts and figures
Technical cooperation: As at 31 December 2004, the value of UNIDO’s ongoing programmes and projects totalled approximately US$ 392.6 million. UNIDO achieved its highest implementation of technical cooperation delivery since 1997 by reaching US$ 98.8 million in 2004, which represented an increase of 4% over the corresponding figure for the previous year. Integrated programmes (IPs) and country service frameworks (CSFs) are the principle instruments for the delivery of technical cooperation. At the end of 2004, 65 programmes had been developed. Of the funds already committed to IPs and CSFs, 41% has been allocated to sub-Saharan Africa, 29% to Asia and the Pacific, 20% to the Arab region, 8% to Latin America and the Caribbean and 2% to Central and Eastern Europe. In the area of multilateral environmental agreements, the value of ongoing projects and programmes totalled approximately US$ 64 million (Montreal Protocol: US$ 56.87 million; Stockholm Convention and Kyoto Protocol: US$ 7.15 million). Details of UNIDO's activities for a particular year can be found in the Annual Report of the Director- General.
Financial resources: Financial resources: Funding for UNIDO activities is drawn from the regular budget, the operational budget and voluntary contributions. The regular budget is derived from Member States' assessed contributions. The operational budget is derived from the implementation of projects. The estimated volume of UNIDO operations for 2006 - 2007 is €355.8 million. The breakup is as follows: regular budget €150.8 million, operational budget €19.9 million and anticipated voluntary contributions €185.1 million.
Information services, databases, newsletters and tools: UNIDO's information services are constituted by its hard copy and online publications (both sales and free) - one of the more significant being the Industrial Development Report; its numerous networks such as the National Cleaner Production Centres, Subcontracting and Partnership Exchanges and International Technology Centres. In addition, UNIDO publishes the electronic weekly newsletter, UNIDOScope, and the online FEATURE article, as well as hard copy newsletters produced periodically by individual integrated programme teams (these are also usually available electronically via UNIDOScope). One of its highly successful project appraisal software tools is COMFAR III Expert (http://www.unido.org/comfar). Its latest tool, UNIDO EXCHANGE, provides a business intelligence network (http://www.unido.org/exchange).
For more information, please see UNIDO’s official website:
http://www.unido.org
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