Regional Focus

Sub-Saharan Africa

The evolution from protection to liberalization in the global trading system and the emphasis on development in the Doha Round offer opportunities for the advancement of trade and industry in Africa. But due to low productivity and lack of competitiveness, expanded market access alone will not be enough to generate growth. African enterprises must strive to develop regional value chains and link with global supply chains to market their products internationally. UNIDO initiatives will, inter alia, help to build capabilities to increase supply capacity, quality, competitiveness and conformity with importer-mandated product standards.

Through the regional programmes of the African Productive Capacity Initiative (APCI), UNIDO is promoting regional integration, harmonization and cooperation. The Programme will thus enhance integration of the regional economic communities for increased market access, remove barriers to trade and help the beneficiary countries to diversify their export base. It will contribute to reducing trade impediments, promoting the harmonization of industrial, trade and technology policies and helping to ensure conformity and compliance with industrial standards and environmental norms.

Arab Countries

In the Eastern Mediterranean subregion UNIDO’s interventions will be oriented towards activities related to capacity-building for production and export, business partnership programmes, SME export consortia, product innovation and diversification for enhanced market access. In addition, UNIDO will promote capacity building for market access and conformity assessment by providing services in the field of standards, metrology, testing, quality management, accreditation and certification.

National policies and the international operations of local enterprises in the Gulf subregion need to play a key role in determining the pattern of globalization in this region. To this end, the Programme will focus on three broad categories of interventions:

1. capacity-building in standards, metrology, testing and accreditation to overcome WTO constraints such as TBT/SPS;
2. enhancing the competitiveness of Gulf enterprises through quality and productivity improvements,
3. and supporting the development of mechanisms to assist them in accessing global supply chains and networks;

The future orientation of UNIDO in the North Africa subregion will reflect the challenges posed by the gradual establishment of a Euro-Mediterranean free-trade area by 2010 to the local industrial sector. UNIDO’s interventions will aim at the modernization/improvement of priority industrial sectors (textile, food, leather) through upgrading programmes and at strengthening the capabilities of local institutions to facilitate competitive trade expansion (establishment of export consortia, quality, metrology, standards and certification services).

Asia and the Pacific

Fuelled by industrialization and international trade, the region has enjoyed rapid economic growth over the past decades. As a result, the shares of the industrial and services sectors in the region’s total GDP have increased significantly, while the share of the agricultural sector has declined.

However, not all the countries have been able to reap the benefits of globalization and trade liberalization due mainly to lack of competitiveness of their export products in the world markets. These countries need programmes that could help to enhance their trade promotion capacity and the quality of their export products so that they may be able to participate meaningfully in world trade and gain access to global markets. Such programmes include the establishment/enhancement of a standards, metrology and certification infrastructure, supply chain management, information networking, and technology development.

Latin America and the Caribbean

In the context of the elaboration of the Regional Programme for Latin America and the Caribbean, the components aimed at production and export capacity-building, above all in agro-industries, will be of particular relevance to the Andean countries and Central America. The same groups of countries will also benefit from technical services related to capacity for market access and conformity assessment through the application of the industrial competitiveness and trade service programme components. It is expected that such services will also be provided on a subregional basis, e.g. to the members of the Community of Andean Nations or the Caribbean subregion. Technology foresight programmes will be applied to selected industrial subsectors, mainly covering subregions.

Europe and the NIS

UNIDO will continue to expand the regional programme on technology foresight, which has become a service with high demand in the region, to support the formulation of technology policies and strategies that guide the development of the technological infrastructure, and to provide incentives and assistance to enterprises in technology management and technology transfer, leading to enhanced competitiveness.

To enable enterprises in the region to participate in global value chains and export
markets, UNIDO will proceed with the implementation of a regional programme to promote CSR as a business and management concept that improves not only profits, but also the environmental and social impact of enterprises.