UNIDO Director-General Kandeh Yumkella

Welcome to my Office

I would like to draw your attention to the vision statement I put before the Industrial Development Board in June 2005 when I was nominated as candidate for Director-General. In that statement I highlighted the importance of partnerships in developing countries between the public and private sectors; in UNIDO between the Secretariat and its Member States or between the Director-General and his staff. I said that a good leader listens to his people and leads with humility, that a good leader must believe in his people and that UNIDO cannot be great without its staff. I want to inspire my staff, I want to challenge them, and I challenge them and Member States, now that I am Director-General, to keep me to my word.

I warned my staff in that very first speech, that I am from a country that is listed as one of the poorest in the world and that I will challenge them to prove that they can deal with poverty alleviation, not in theory, but in practice.

I asked Member States to see my vision statement as a document for dialogue, not something set in stone, because development itself evolves over time. I asked Member States to be open to new ideas, because I believe today in the development world we must be willing to look at other paradigms of development, because I am going to do it. I will also be putting a lot of emphasis on  South-South cooperation. 

As I said at the end of my statement to the Board, when we discuss poverty alleviation, or industrial development, we must always remember it is about people. It is not an abstract concept. It is about people in my village. So let us be real, let us be practical. Theory must come to practice; practice must be financed well.

Dr. Kandeh K. Yumkella