UN-BACKED FORUM EXAMINES LOW-CARBON INDUSTRIAL FUTURE FOR ASIA

Some 1,000 participants kicked off a United Nations-backed conference in Manila today focusing on the transition of Asian economies to a more resource-efficient and low-carbon pattern of industrial development.

The gathering is hosted by the Government of the Philippines in cooperation with the UN Industrial Development Organization (<"http://www.unido.org/index.php?id=7881&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=391&tx_ttnews[backPid]=7838&cHash=378e1d8552">UNIDO), the UN Environment Programme (<"http://www.unep.org/">UNEP) and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (<"http://www.unescap.org/">ESCAP).

"This conference should shed new light on how economies in Asia can achieve a smooth and speedy transition to a resource-efficient and low-carbon pattern of industrial development… and in the process, help create new jobs, build the industries of the 21st century, maintain the momentum of growth and protect our planet," said UNIDO Director-General Kandeh K. Yumkella.

He noted that UNIDO and UNEP were jointly contributing to improving resource efficiency in the region through cleaner production centres in Cambodia, China, India, Laos, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Republic of Korea and Viet Nam.

Participants at the gathering noted that while there have been significant gains in resource efficiency in Asia over the last few years, much more needs to be done, especially since resource use in the region continues to increase with economic growth.

The three-day event is expected to endorse a ministerial declaration and plan of action that will outline the steps needed to reduce the resource intensity and greenhouse gas emissions of industries in Asia and track progress towards a low-carbon industrial future.

UNIDO is among the UN agencies that have been calling for greater investment and robust government policies to allow a shift towards a low-carbon, environmentally friendly economy with "green industry" at its core.

Meanwhile, in the Republic of Korea, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Sha Zukang today noted the importance of supporting developing countries' active participation in green growth.

"Developing countries need to continue growing strongly to lift their people out of poverty and, at the same time, to redirect growth along a greener path," he told participants at the Green Korea 2009 Conference in Seoul.

He said that to make this happen, large investments will be needed in the next few decades – financed in no small part by developed countries – in energy efficiency, renewable energy technologies and infrastructure, and public transport.

The gathering, co-organized by the UN, the Presidential Committee on Green Growth and the National Research Council for Economics, Humanities and Social Sciences, will explore how cooperation between government and industry can help translate low-carbon growth into reality.

UN AND HP BRING TECHNOLOGY TRAINING TO YOUTH IN AFRICA AND MIDDLE EAST

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the technology company HP announced today the opening of 20 training centres in Africa and the Middle East to expand youth entrepreneurship and information technology education.

The new centres, in Algeria, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates, brings to 33 the number of centres in ten countries in Africa and the Middle East.

The HP Graduate Entrepreneurship Training through IT programme (GET-IT) provides training to unemployed youth and graduates between the ages of 16 and 25, and helps potential entrepreneurs acquire IT skills with the aim of becoming better placed to create and run their own businesses, UNIDO said. GET-IT courses teach practical IT solutions for daily business challenges in finance, management, marketing and technology management.

"The UNIDO-HP partnership aims at addressing the high level of unemployment among young people in developing countries by integrating them into the labour market through successful entrepreneurship," said Kandeh K. Yumkella, UNIDO Director-General.

Through its field office network in Africa and the Middle East, UNIDO identifies non-profit organizations eligible to become GET-IT partners and monitors the activities of these partners to ensure the sustainability of the programme, UNIDO said.

UNIDO, with 173 Member States, is a specialised agency of the UN system working towards improving the quality of life of the world's poor by helping countries achieve sustainable industrial development.
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INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT OFFERS HOPE FOR WORLD’S POOREST ‘BOTTOM BILLION,’ SAYS UN

INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT OFFERS HOPE FOR WORLD'S POOREST 'BOTTOM BILLION,' SAYS UN
New York, Feb 23 2009 10:00AM
Sustainable industrial development offers a ray of hope for lifting the world's "bottom billion" – those that live on less than $1 a day – out of poverty, according to a new report released today by the United Nations.

The <"http://www.unido.org/index.php?id=6519&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=326&tx_ttnews[backPid]=6&cHash=72bc073545">Industrial Development Report 2009, launched in London by the UN Industrial Development Organization (<"http://www.unido.org/index.php?id=28"UNIDO) and the lead author, Professor Paul Collier, University of Oxford, is about the opportunities and constraints faced by two groups of countries.

The first are the countries of the "bottom billion" trying to break into global markets for manufactured goods, and the second are the middle-income countries that are striving to move up to more sophisticated manufacturing.

The report identifies a comprehensive set of policies to help both groups break out of poverty and achieve accelerated economic growth and sustainable development through "value-creating" industrialization.

"Our report represents a major conceptual breakthrough on how to tackle global poverty through sustainable industrial development," UNIDO Director-General Kandeh Yumkella <"http://www.unido.org/fileadmin/user_media/News/2009/PR07.pdf">said.

"Bottom Billion nations will be able to arrive at their own, tailor-made solutions to successfully tackle poverty building on the research findings and informative case studies highlighted in this report."

Among the main features of the report include helping reduce global poverty by assisting the poorest countries choose the right products to manufacture for the global market, supporting their efforts to penetrate markets by improving export supply capacities and meeting international quality and safety standards, and identifying polices to accelerate industrial growth.

The report also proposes a new UN category of "least developed manufacturing countries" that could be used by the World Trade Organization with respect to trade preferences for the manufactured exports of low-income countries.

Ten case studies of "dynamic industrial locations" in developing countries are presented in the report to demonstrate that the right policies have made a significant difference in the economic development of these countries.

They show, for instance, that countries that specialized in making an individual component of a whole product, rather than the entire product, grew more rapidly. One example of this is the Chinese city of Qiaotou that built its industry on the production of buttons and now accounts for 65 per cent of the world's production of buttons.

UNIDO added that the report shows once again that poorer countries should not rely on the export of primary commodities to bankroll their development, noting that commodity prices are subject to the volatility of global markets and that such a focus can sometimes discourage the growth of manufacturing.
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For more details go to UN News Centre at http://www.un.org/news