Partnerships and Coherence

Dealing with complex development problems often means that a multi-agency response is needed, whether with other multilateral organisations and agencies or with national agencies and professional institutions.

UNIDO has therefore entered into a number of strategic partnerships, which also increase the efficiency and effectiveness of technical support, avoiding overlaps and duplication. UNIDO concentrates its efforts on developing competitive supply capacity and the creation of conformity assessment infrastructure complying with the WTO SPS and TBT agreements as well as voluntary standards. It looks to other organizations and agencies for specialized knowledge in trade facilitation issues such as World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Trade Centre (ITC) and the United Nations Conference on Aid and Development (UNCTAD). This approach was further endorsed through a Memorandum of Understanding signed between UNIDO and WTO in 2005.

This type of assistance is in line with the recommendations of the WTO Aid for Trade Task Force, the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the UN system-wide coherence goals. In cooperation with key donors, such as the European Union, Austria, France, Italy, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, UNIDO implements TCB programmes using innovative approaches such as linking debt swaps and trade-related technical cooperation, specifically to overcome TBT/SPS constraints and to establish “farm-to-fork” traceability mechanisms, as in the case of a debt swap agreement between Egypt and Italy.