The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) (; ONUDI) is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that assists countries in economic and industrial development. It is headquartered at the UN Office in Vienna, Austria, with a permanent presence in over 60 countries. As of October 4,2024, UNIDO comprises 173 member states, which together set the organization's policies, programs, and principles through the biannual General Conference.

UNIDO was established in 1966 by the UN General Assembly to promote and accelerate the industrialization of developing countries, which were emerging from decolonization in record numbers and with little to no industrial base. In 1979 it became one of the 15 specialized agencies of the UN, with its new constitution coming into force in 1985. Since its founding, the organization has restructured and reformed several times; the 2013 Lima Declaration expanded its mission to include promoting "inclusive and sustainable industrial development" (ISID), defined as benefiting greater numbers of people while safeguarding the environment. UNIDO is a member of the United Nations Development Group, a coalition of UN entities aimed at fulfilling the Sustainable Development Goals.

On 25 July 2016, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution A/RES/70/293, proclaiming the period 2016–2025 as the Third Industrial Development Decade for Africa (IDDA III). UNIDO was called upon to lead the initiative in collaboration with a range of partners. These include the African Union Commission, the New Partnership for Africa's Development, the Economic Commission for Africa, etc.

From 2018 to 2021, UNIDO's strategic priorities include creating shared prosperity; advancing economic competitiveness; safeguarding the environment; and strengthening knowledge and institutions. Each of these goals is to be achieved through technical cooperation, policy advice, analysis and research, the development of uniform standards and quality control, and partnerships for knowledge transfer, networking and industrial cooperation.

UNIDO employs some 670 staff and draws on the services of some 2,800 international and national experts—approximately half from developing countries—annually, who work in project assignments throughout the world.

Overview The relevance of ISID as an integrated approach to all three pillars of sustainable development is recognized by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will frame United Nations and country efforts towards sustainable development in the next fifteen years. UNIDO's mandate is fully recognized in SDG-9, which calls to "Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation". The relevance of ISID, however, applies in greater or lesser extent to all SDGs.

Accordingly, the Organization's programmatic focus is structured, as detailed in the Organization's Medium-Term Programme Framework 2018–2021, in four strategic priorities:

Creating shared prosperity; Advancing economic competitiveness; Safeguarding the environment; Strengthening knowledge and institutions.

Each of these programmatic fields of activity contains a number of individual programmes, which are implemented in a holistic manner to achieve effective outcomes and impacts through UNIDO's four enabling functions: Technical cooperation; Analytical and research functions and policy advisory services; Normative functions and standards and quality-related activities; Convening and partnerships for knowledge transfer, networking and industrial cooperation.

In carrying out the core requirements of its mission, UNIDO has considerably increased its technical services over the past ten years. At the same time, it has also substantially increased its mobilization of financial resources, testifying to the growing international recognition of the Organization as an effective provider of catalytic industrial development services.

UNIDO was established as a UN programme in 1966 with headquarters in Vienna, Austria, and became a specialized agency of the United Nations in 1985.

In 2004, UNIDO established the UNIDO Goodwill Ambassador programme.

In 2009, UNIDO created a new flagship publication, Making It: Industry for Development .

Executive heads UNIDO Executive Directors1967–1974Ibrahim Helmi Abd-elRahman ( Egypt)1975–1985Abd-El Rahman Khane ( Algeria)UNIDO Director-Generals1985–1992Domingo L. Siazon Jr. ( Philippines)1993–1997Mauricio de Maria y Campos ( Mexico)1998–2005Carlos Alfredo Magariños ( Argentina)2006 – June 2013Kandeh Yumkella ( Sierra Leone)July 2013 – November 2021Li Yong (李勇) ( China)December 2021 – Gerd Müller ( Germany)

Facts and figures UNIDO's headquarters are located at the Vienna International Centre, the UN campus that also hosts the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, among others.

Strategic priorities

Creating shared prosperity UNIDO concentrates its efforts on the development of agro-industries, increasing the participation of women and youth in productive activities, and human security in post-crisis situations. The Organization's services for the development of agro-industries focus on adding value to agricultural production by strengthening linkages between agriculture, industry and markets.

UNIDO supports the transformation of enterprises from the informal sector to the formal sector, with a special focus on simplifying and improving access to administrative company registration services. It also strives to improve women's participation in entrepreneurial activities. Based on its experience in post-crisis and human security programmes and projects, UNIDO responds to complex emergencies through activities that contribute to socio-economic as well as environmental and energy security both at national and local level.

Advancing economic competitiveness UNIDO supports programmes towards investment and technology promotion, SME development, trade capacity building, and entrepreneurship development.

UNIDO provides advisory services to improve the business and policy environment for the private sector, assisting with the creation of productive capacities. Its programmes support investment and technology opportunities to help enterprises, especially SMEs, improve productivity and innovation, and achieve systemic competitive advantages. Building on a robust global network aimed at fostering investment, technology and other partnership opportunities, UNIDO seeks to enable SMEs to capitalize on their unique dynamism and flexibility by strengthening synergies among enterprises and with support institutions.

In the context of trade capacity-building programmes, UNIDO strengthens international trade norms and standards by assisting developing countries and transition economies in upgrading production and processing systems to enhance the quality of local products, in particular through the adoption of improved technologies, and help them conform to the standards required by international markets. UNIDO builds capacities in both public and private institutions to formulate trade policies and strategies based on economic and statistical analysis, as well as benchmarking competitive performance at sectoral and product levels and supporting the establishment of trade-related databases such as inventories of technical barriers to trade (TBT), which are designed to expand exports from the industrial sector.

Safeguarding the environment

UNIDO supports countries in their environmental management efforts, including the implementation of multilateral environmental agreements and the provision of sustainable energy. It helps create new green industries, establishing national road maps for greening the supply chain, determining benchmarks and indicators, disseminating and sharing best practices, running clean technology programmes, undertaking various capacity-building exercises and contributing to international forums with the necessary research and expertise.

The Organization's services include capacity building, direct technical support to enterprises and assistance to government institutions on Cleaner Production (CP) policy matters, as well as the promotion, adaptation and transfer of environmentally sound technologies and the implementation of advanced CP business models, such as chemical leasing.

Strengthening knowledge and institutions Strengthening knowledge and institutions is a prioritized outcome that is elevated over other high-level results. It describes the organization's strategic direction towards strengthening the knowledge base for ISID at the project, programme, country and international level, as well as the institutional capacity at the technical, policy and normative level.

Historical background

Origins

The origins of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) can be traced to a series of studies on a programme of rapid industrialization of developing countries that the United Nations Secretariat carried out during the early 1950s at the request of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). These studies culminated in a programme of work on industrialization and productivity prepared by the United Nations Secretary-General in 1956 and endorsed the next year by ECOSOC and the General Assembly. At that time, it was first suggested that a special body to deal with the problems of industrialization be established, whose political organs could relieve ECOSOC and the General Assembly of the detailed consideration of those questions and whose secretariat could carry out more substantive work than the existing Industry Section of the Bureau of Economic Affairs within the Secretariat. The Industry Section of the Secretariat became a branch in 1959, and in 1962 it became the Industrial Development Centre, headed by a Commissioner for Industrial Development.

Special organ of the United Nations In the aftermath, proposals for further institutionalizing industrial development-related issues within the UN were considered by various advisory groups and inter-organizational organs. Subsequently, the United Nations General Assembly created the UNIDO in November 1966 as a special organ of the United Nations. In January 1967, the Organization was formally established with headquarters in Vienna, Austria. Compared to the Industrial Development Centre, UNIDO's creation was intended to broaden the work of its predecessor. Besides normative activities, such as acting as a forum for discussions, analytical functions and information dissemination, UNIDO became involved in operational activities, i.e. in technical co-operation activities.

Conversion into a specialized agency