Opening Statement by Dr. Kandeh Yumkella Director-General at the Thirty-Second Session of the Industrial Development Board
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CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY UNITED NATIONS INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION Opening Statement by Dr. Kandeh Yumkella Director-General at the thirty-second session of the Industrial Development Board Vienna, 29 November 2006 Mr. President, Ministers, Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen, It is my great pleasure to welcome you to the thirty-second session of the Industrial Development Board. It is a special privilege to address an audience that includes several dignitaries whose presence contributed significantly to our festivities yesterday. I wish to express my gratitude once again to the Ministers from Côte d’Ivoire, Haiti, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, the Syrian Arab Republic and Uruguay and indeed to all of you who joined our celebrations, for being with us on this important occasion. I would also like to reiterate my special thanks to the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and to the City of Vienna, for their support and generosity in making this event a success. As we turn to the official part of this Board session, I wish to express my confidence in our President, Ambassador Soltanieh of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Together with the members of his Bureau, and based on the experience of our thirty-first session, we can be confident of smooth proceedings in the days ahead. Mr. President, Distinguished delegates, It was about a year ago that you entrusted me with the task of guiding UNIDO through the next four years of its history. This year has been both challenging and exciting. Much has been done, and much has been achieved. The measures I have taken have spanned a wide spectrum, from administrative and structural refinements, staff assignments and a review of core managerial processes to innovative programmatic enhancements. I have also travelled extensively to meet our stakeholders in all regions of the world to reassure them of UNIDO’s commitment and support. In addition, we at UNIDO have contributed actively to the intense debate on UN coherence. I will revert to all of these issues in the course of my statement. TC delivery [slide 1] At the outset, I take pride in presenting to you a positive picture in terms of UNIDO’s technical cooperation (TC) delivery figures. Cumulative data for the first ten months of 2006 show that the value of our TC services amounted to US-$ 97.6 million. This represents an increase of more than 4 per cent over the corresponding figure for 2005, and an even more impressive increase of almost 11 per cent relative to the more directly comparable year 2004, the first year of the past biennium. These increases have been achieved in spite of many challenges that my management team, like all other new administrations, has faced. In the June Board session, I reiterated my commitment not only to continuous improvement but also to improvement within continuity. I stressed my belief in the benefits of stability and the need to minimize any operational disruptions. The TC data that I have just cited show clearly that our determined yet cautious approach has paid off. Against this backdrop, my expectations for the future are bold and ambitious – but not, I hasten to add, unrealistic [slide 2]. I firmly believe that in the medium- 2 term, say five years from now, we should be able to raise our annual delivery of TC services to US$ 150-170 million based on our core strengths, thematic priorities, sharp focus and carefully selected strategic partnerships. While we have been increasing our services and establishing the foundations for robust growth, I am also pleased to report that our Member States have reciprocated by placing an ever-increasing degree of confidence in UNIDO. This is demonstrated by an impressive collection rate of assessed contributions, of around 93 per cent, so far during 2006. While I urge all Member States to settle their arrears and pay their contributions in full and on time, we have shown in the past, e.g. through payment plans, that UNIDO is sensitive to the constraints some of you have been facing. Quality focus Mr. President, Distinguished delegates, I wish to assure you that I will never compromise on UNIDO’s quest for excellence. Increases in TC delivery must not and will not be achieved at the expense of quality. I will keep challenging my staff to generate tangible impact. We will strengthen our capabilities and refine our approaches to measure the results achieved for our beneficiaries. I am fully committed to the principles of results-based management, or RBM. While we are in the process of refining our own RBM systems, which have been recognized as being among the most effective introduced within the UN system, we are also eager to learn from the experience gained by our sister agencies. We recognize that RBM is an imperative, but we also recognize that it is not easily achieved. Responding to this system-wide challenge, indeed all UN executive heads agreed at the meeting of the Chief Executives Board last month to move towards a more harmonized approach to RBM. To this end, the High-level Committees on Management and Programmes have established a joint working group, which will report to a joint session of the two committees in early 2007. UNIDO will, of course, contribute actively to these deliberations. My yardstick of success therefore transcends the simple financial value of TC delivery. It is based, instead, on the degree to which our programmes reduce poverty, create employment, generate exports, abate pollution, and provide energy for productive services, to mention just our key outcome dimensions. Strengthening delivery capacities Our ambitious programme development drive –which I will further elaborate on shortly – requires the build-up of commensurate delivery capacities. You will recall that in the June session of the Board I informed you of the status of recruitments since I assumed office. I also informed you that I had launched a comprehensive exercise of reviewing available skills and identifying critical skills gaps in the Organization, in particular in new growth areas. This exercise has now been concluded and has provided us with a sound basis for meeting UNIDO’s recruitment needs in a targeted and focussed manner. I am now in a position to give you a comprehensive overview of recruitment activities undertaken since May 2006 when we commenced recruitment actions: 3 So far 65 professional positions have been advertised. The recruitments for 33 of these positions have been concluded. This includes the four Director-level positions at headquarters. Of the 65 professional positions, 34 were advertised to both external and internal applicants while 31 were open only to internal candidates. The latter figure includes the 23 field positions that were advertised internally in accordance with the provisions of the new field mobility policy. I also informed the Board in June of my intention to strengthen UNIDO’s competitive selection process through the introduction of assessment centre techniques. I am pleased to announce that these techniques have already been successfully implemented for the recruitment of professional staff. Enhanced programme development Mr.President, Distinguished delegates, UNIDO is now embarking on a dynamic exercise of developing new programmes. The scope is truly vast, and I am determined to make 2007, my second year in office, a year of a new programme development. Our preliminary projections suggest that UNIDO will formulate close to 40 major new programmes and projects during this period. These are expected to include some 20 integrated programmes or other country-level programmes as well as ten sub-regional, regional, and South-South cooperation programmes. [slide 3] In particular, our renewed South-South industrial cooperation programme will gain greater momentum, especially through the establishment of more South-South industrial cooperation centres. I want to convey, once again, my sincere gratitude to the Governments of China and India for pioneering this concept with UNIDO already in 2006. The dedicated Centres just established in these countries will become fully operational in 2007, expanding their outreach and demonstrating their capabilities through programmes with impact. In the coming years we hope to be able to establish similar centres in other countries like Brazil, Egypt and South Africa, which we perceive as important sources of technologies relevant for other developing countries. We are also giving increased attention to sharpening our poverty focus, primarily around the powerful concept of value chains. In this connection, a special thematic retreat was organized for the first time ever in October 2006, where three of our branches discussed how to frame and organize their work jointly around this concept. Similar thematic retreats are planned for the areas of trade capacity-building and environment and energy in 2007. In addition, a number of experienced staff members will be assigned the task of cross-organizational management of our three thematic priorities, including the forging of strategic inter-agency partnerships. In the context of our poverty-related theme, and with a view to enhancing our dialogue with the poorest among our Member States, we will organize a special LDC Ministerial Meeting during the nest General Conference in 2007. 4 Mr. President, Distinguished delegates The issue of inter-agency cooperation is particularly close to my heart. I believe firmly in the need for UNIDO to work together with complementary organizations to broaden our response to the development needs of our Member States. I am therefore determined both to intensify cooperation with our existing partners, such as UNEP, whose Executive Director will be addressing this meeting through a video link shortly, and other organizations with whom we have so far only cooperated on a case- by-case basis. Specifically, I would like to cite the recent signing of an MOU with FAO, which provides for the placing of UNIDO staff in Rome, hosted by FAO, in order to develop closer links and prepare joint programmes in the areas of agro-based industrial processing and biofuels.