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Industrial Development Board, 20th session

Daily Highlights

19 November 1998

  • The twentieth Session of the Industrial Development Board (IDB) was opened by UNIDO Director-General Carlos Magariños, who stressed that a fresh injection of investment was essential to the new multilateral industrialization programmes just launched by UNIDO. He warned that lack of financial commitment would jeopardize industrial assistance to those countries that needed it most. Mr. Magariños announced the first seven integrated packages of services - for Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda - amounting to some US million or nearly half of the Organization's total technical cooperation in 1997 or 1998. (The DG's full statement)
  • During the Board's opening, speakers underlined the importance of timely payment of contributions to UNIDO as well as the arrears owed by Member States.
  • The President of the current session of the Board is Fructuoso Pittaluga Fonseca (Uruguay). The Vice Presidents are Abubakr Salih Nur (Sudan), Riad Siage (Syrian Arab Republic) and Marianne Von Grünigen (Switzerland). The Rapporteur is Traiko Spasov (Bulgaria).

20 November 1998

  • Austrian State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Benita Ferrero-Waldner said that the recent transformation of UNIDO had "become a success story within the UN system". She pointed out that the financial commitment of the donor community is of utmost importance for the implementation of the first test cases under UNIDO's new programmatic approach. Referring to the United Nations climate change conference in Buenos Aires, earlier this month, she said that UNIDO had an important role to play.
  • For the first time during the IDB session, Africa Industrialization Day's message from the UN HQ in New York was relayed in real time to Vienna with a satellite link. Six ministries of industries from Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda participated in the celebrations in Vienna and signed their country agreement on technical cooperation programmes with the UNIDO Director-General. UN Deputy Secretary-General Ms. Louise Frechette delivered a key note address from New York. A joint statement by UNIDO, OAU and ECA was delivered by UNIDO Director-General Carlos Magariños.
  • Mr. Magariños will present UNIDO's new programmes to the media at a press conference next Tuesday, 24 November, at the Concordia Press Club, Bankgasse 8, 1010 Vienna, at 10:30 a.m. All journalists are cordially invited to attend.