The fourth Inclusive and Sustainable Industrial Development Forum that ended on 1 December 2015 in Vienna focused on ways the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) can contribute to advancing industry, infrastructure and innovation in the context of Sustainable Development Goal 9.

The two-day event highlighted the achievements of UNIDO’s new Programme for Country Partnership, which is being piloted in Ethiopia and Senegal, and will be expected to be extended to a few other countries in Asia and Latin America. 

Over 300 participants also discussed multi-stakeholder partnerships for creating linkages and synergies between infrastructure investment, industrial development and investment in innovation

The discussion at the forum focused, among other topics, on the United Nations’ new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which has at its core a set of seventeen universal, ambitious and inter-related 17 Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs. These SDGs include, as Goal 9, a call to build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and foster innovation.

LI Yong, UNIDO’s Director General, said that “by adopting this goal, the world has affirmed the importance of industrialization.” 

Speakers at the event stressed that UNIDO considers partnerships, in particular its Programme for Country Partnership, as the way forward to achieving SDG 9 and the rest of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 

“The Programme for Country Partnership model, with its ability to unlock and upscale investment for inclusive and sustainable industrialization, has relevance for many SDGs. For example, our partnership approach can facilitate agro-industry for sustainable agriculture in SDG 2, the economic growth of SDG 8, the poverty eradication of SDG 1 and so on,” said Director General Li. 

UNIDO is now moving forward with a gradual expansion of the Programme for Country Partnership pilot countries, with Peru as the next country where it will be implemented.   

Piero Ghezzi Solis, Minister of Production of Peru, who participated in the forum, said: “The Government of Peru is currently implementing a set of strategies to drive the forces of economic growth. They will fit well with UNIDO's Programme for Country Partnership model. Our country is pleased to be the first in Latin America to implement this approach.” 

In 2017, UNIDO will conduct a mid-term review of the Programme for Country Partnership and begin incorporating it into current technical cooperation programmes.

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Background Document

SDG 9: Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

The international community has recently adopted the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that comprise this agenda, SDG 9 calls for a renewed approach towards promoting industry, innovation and infrastructure.

It should come as no surprise that the 2030 Agenda contains a reference to inclusive and sustainable industrialization. History bears testimony that no single country has reached a high stage of economic and social development without first having developed an advanced industrial sector. Industry is therefore at the anchor of SDG 9: it requires critical infrastructure and paves the way for innovation in a country’s development.

Moving away from a high reliance on agriculture and natural resource extraction to industrial activities can unleash dynamic forces that generate employment and income, and facilitate international trade. In fact, the share of manufacturing value-added created in developing countries has almost doubled in the past 20 years, from 18 per cent in 1992 to 35 per cent in 2012. Inclusive and sustainable industrialization is a novel and important approach to building industry. Making industrialization inclusive widens the share of those who can partake in its benefits – in other words, inclusive industry raises the prosperity of all, including the vulnerable – whereas making industry sustainable means putting environmental concerns at the forefront of the industrialization process. UNIDO is committed to making inclusive and sustainable industrialization a reality. In December 2013, UNIDO’s Member States came together to adopt the Lima Declaration, renewing the Organization’s commitment to promoting industry and providing it with a mandate to pursue inclusive and sustainable industrial development (ISID).

This paper outlines industry’s link to infrastructure and to innovation, and concludes with UNIDO’s proposal for achieving the ambitious and urgent task that SDG 9 sets before the international community.

Given that channeling infrastructure and innovation towards inclusive and sustainable industrialization is a goal that no single entity can manage to fulfill by itself, partnerships are the way forward to meet the ambitious and urgent targets of SDG 9. Partnerships are themselves a form of innovation, and they enable the successful financing and execution of targeted industrial infrastructure projects, such as industrial parks, which can advance ISID.

UNIDO’s PCP approach harmonizes the interrelations among industry, infrastructure, and innovation. Partnerships are forged and resources mobilized in a coordinated manner, ensuring synergies as far as possible between all national programmes that contribute to inclusive and sustainable industrialization. In so doing, the PCP helps overcome key challenges facing the international community as it strives to fulfill the vital aims of SDG 9 and the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.