BRUSSELS - Director General Gerd Müller took part in the first Global Gateway Forum under the leadership of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The two-day Global Gateway Forum brought representatives of governments from the European Union and around the world together with representatives of the private sector, civil society, financing institutions and international organizations.

The Global Gateway is a European strategy to boost smart, clean and secure links in digital, energy and transport sectors and to strengthen health, education and research systems across the world.

UNIDO’s Müller said the strategy is aligned with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adding “The Global Gateway is a great opportunity to scale up UNIDO-EU cooperation and to increase investments in developing countries for food security and sustainable energy, for decent jobs for youth and women along international supply chains.”

The Director General held talks with Ursula von der Leyen, Jutta Urpilainen, European Commissioner for International Partnerships, and Gert Jan Koopman, Director-General of the Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (NEAR). They discussed ways to deepen the UNIDO-European Union (EU) partnership to support the implementation of the Global Gateway.

In the last decades, UNIDO and the EU have worked together in more than 100 countries to establish sustainable supply chains, create jobs, fight climate change and environmental degradation, and support local production of manufactured products, including pharmaceuticals.