Vienna and worldwide, 6 Sept, 2023 – The heads of the UNIDO Investment and Technology Promotion Office (ITPO) network came together for a virtual meeting together with Director General Gerd Müller to exchange experiences and take stock of how the ITPOs are contributing to addressing the Organization‘s recently sharpened priorities.

During the conference, all ITPOs presented their current initiatives and projects, also exploring how to better connect with one another to leverage respective strengths and contacts. It was quickly agreed that there is a shared desire to strengthen collaboration between the various ITPOs and UNIDO HQ itself, and to bring forward more joint initiatives. DG Müller emphasized the importance of the ITPOs‘ role in establishing local partnerships with the private sector – pointing to recent meetings and the related joint activities being developed with Microsoft and Google as examples of the sort of high-level outcomes that could be achieved. The Offices are to prioritize such concrete results on the ground above more academic engagement, to demonstrate the tangible benefits that UNIDO can bring.

In keeping with the strategic direction laid out during the recent Industrial Development Board and Programme and Budget Committee sessions, the Director General called for the ITPOs and headquarters to work on establishing a comprehensive framework for prioritizing the realization of high-level flagship projects in lieu of smaller-scale initiatives. These are to be developed in cooperation with host countries and in connection with local ministries and regional partners. The ITPO network will play a leading role in establishing UNIDO as a frontrunner in technology and knowledge transfer, a platform for worldwide exchange of solutions for sustainability.

The ITPOs are a key aspect of UNIDO‘s global presence and a critical part of the Organization‘s global partnerships. UNIDO operates a global network with 50 country and regional offices and more than 1,000 experts spread around all the regions of the world. Amongst those are the ten ITPOs, currently situated in Bahrain, Beijing, Berlin, Bonn, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Nigeria, Russia, and Shanghai. It is a network designed to mobilize investments and technologies for sustainable industrial development, particularly to create more win-win situations between companies from industrialized countries and emerging and developing economies.