In the context of the 8th European Conference on Corporate R&D and Innovation (CONCORDI), 2021 - Industrial innovation for competitive sustainability, held online between 22-25 November 2021, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) convened two plenary sessions to discuss the greening of the economy and digitalization as two megatrends shaping the future of industrialization. These megatrends will influence developing countries' efforts towards the achievement of inclusive and sustainable industrial development and the global sustainability agenda. The ongoing pandemic introduces resilience as an additional driver for policy, capacity development and strengthened coordination and collaboration around industrial innovation and industrial policy issues at different levels.
By leveraging its vast field experiences, technical cooperation activities and research work, UNIDO introduced developing country and sustainability perspectives to inform policy recommendations stemming from CONCORDI 2021, while also proposing novel policy- and action-orientated research agendas.
During his remarks at the plenary session titled: "The future of industrialization in a post pandemic world: Focus on developing countries", Hiroshi Kuniyoshi, UNIDOI's Deputy to the Director General, advocated novel approaches to industrial policies as crucial for seizing the windows of opportunities stemming from digitalization and the greening of manufacturing. The threat of growing divides, he said, implies that industrialization requires commitment to foster industrial innovation as the basis for catching up and leapfrogging in a post-pandemic world.
Kuniyoshi suggested that successful endorsement of the fourth industrial revolution would depend on each country's responses and readiness, including through industrial capability building, domestic market size and upgrading in global value chains. He said policymakers need to pay attention to both framework conditions and specific policies to support development of production capabilities by firms.
The plenary session titled: "Inclusive and Sustainable Industrial Recovery through Digital Transformation", addressed different factors that can determine success in endorsing the twin transition towards the green and the digital economy. These include digital planning and innovation strategies, focusing on trade facilitation, investing in infrastructure and enhancing policy coherence as well as addressing issues of finance from both public and private sources.
Speakers said capacity building, particularly for women and youth, remains a fundamental challenge, including the promotion of digital and green skills, and science, technology engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Addressing cultural biases preventing gender inclusivity, and solving skills gaps between men and women, should supplement efforts to facilitate access of women to better jobs.
There was agreement that in all these processes, priority setting would help focus on fewer challenges, while partnership building between governments, private sector, research organizations and multilateral organizations will be fundamental to securing an enabling environment for developing countries to leverage on the digital and the green economy towards meeting the sustainability targets associated with the 2030 and 2050 agendas. UNIDO stands ready to broker collaboration between its Members States and development partners in ways that reduce fragmentation of development assistance, and by bringing development assistance with impact to the field level.
The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (EC-JRC) convenes the CONCORDI biannually. For this year's edition, UNIDO, the European Association for Research and Technology Organisations (EARTO), and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) joined the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) as co-organizers.
UNIDO's contribution to CONCORDI2021 marks a progressive strengthening of the collaboration with the JRC on science, technology and innovation (STI) matters, beyond ongoing work in context of the UN Inter-Agency Task Team on STI for the SDGs.
