UNIDO
UNIDO promotes partnerships with NGOs!
Tidiane Boye (UNIDO) explained the Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals and the role of partnerships, March 1, 2016, to the audience of the UN NGO Committee on Sustainable Development. UNIDO wants to achieve with its program ISID (Inclusive and Sustainable Industrial Development) the development goal SDG 9 (built resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and foster innovation) and SDG 17 (strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development). Under global and local partnership UNIDO understands the cooperation and collaboration with the private sector such as SMEs, multinational corporations, NGOs and other stakeholders to fulfill the two SDGs more efficiently. Tidiane Boye indicated that UNIDO was pleased about the growing interest in the private sector and NGOs to join forces for sustainable development and particular for SDG 17. To maximize the development impact, UNIDO wants to improve both the internal and external coordination on partnerships with DFIs, NGOs, and the private sector. About Austria, Boye told that UNIDO offered the Austrian Chamber of Commerce, Austrian Industry Association, Austrian Development Agency, and other institutions their cooperation with the intention to create synergies between UNIDO and their partners. Partnerships are not new to UNIDO, it always developed and maintained partnerships with Governments, other UN agencies, and donors. However, the new partnership approach is putting more emphasis on also including partnerships with the private sector and development financial institutions (DFIs), as well as NGOs; Through the Program for Country Partnership Framework, UNIDO is proactively identifying new partners and supporting the coordination of multi-stakeholder partnerships that can contribute to ISID. UNIDO involves NGOs in a comprehensive engagement program participating household community, local government, and another stakeholder: in this process, non-governmental organizations play a significant role. Tidiane Boye revealed that UNIDO sees in establishing of Industrial Parks (Enterprise zones) a promising tool for achieving ISID. The members of the UN NGO Committee on Sustainable Development expected to hear which role their NGO could play in current and future projects of the UNIDO and what knowledge and experience are required. Because of the lack of time, Tidiane Boye could not reply to this question, and so the answer is still open. The members of the UN NGO Committee on Sustainable Development should represent from their own perspective how their own NGO could contribute to the programs and projects of UNIDO.
Roland Leithenmayr VFV
Vienna International Centre – Sustainable Development
The Vienna International Center (VIC or Uno City) is located in the 22. District in Vienna. The United Nations Office at Vienna (UNOV) is one of the UN’s four headquarters alongside New York, Geneva, and Nairobi. The UNOV includes the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); the International Commissions for Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR); the Office for Outer Space Affairs (OOSA); the Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL); the Organization for Industrial Development (UNIDO) and the Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) as well as the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO). On 1. January 1980 the UN office in the VIC began its operation. The VIC was designed by the Austrian architect Johann Staber and the construction was supervised by Erich Jaros. VIC covers 230.000 square meters and its Y-shaped towers (A-G) are between 48 to 120 m high, count 109 floors and are connected by 60 elevators. The building volume of the VIC Main Complex is about 1.050.000 cubic meter.It hosts 5000 offices, ca. 5000 people from 110 nationalities and flags more than 190. The VIC building belongs to BIG (Bundesimmobilien GmbH, Austria) and is rented out to the UN organizations for 1 USD annually. Erich Jaros is VIC legend: he was formerly a consultant at IAEA supervising the construction of the VIC, then employed by UNIDO working as chief of the Building Management Service (BMS) until his retirement in 1994. Erich enjoyed his job at the VIC, but suffered under disappointments too mostly connected with the administration’s lack of understanding of BMS’s money savings ideas: they did not listen to him. For about 15 years, the author of this postings, contacted Erich to initiate a pilot project regarding energy saving, renewable energy, waste- and waste water management, utilization of water, a decrease of any form of pollution, usage of natural light, eco-friendly material, etc. With the support of BMS employees and technical and economic experts, Erich and I developed a concept to increase the energy efficiency as it offers the fastest and easiest entry into resource productivity. A short-term energy saving of more than 20% and long-term a Factor 5 could have been achieved. Erich submitted the project to the UN in New York but unfortunately received a negative reply. Certainly, the responsible organizations like the UNO office and the BIG implemented necessary measures, so the buildings are now perhaps more sustainable and intelligent (smart) as before, but the author misses the annual Sustainability Report to allow comparisons with the past and with other large buildings, and to achieve some of the 17 SDGs.
Roland Leithenmayr, 13. December 2016
UNIDOs collaboration with Austrian companies
For the implementation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 subordinated goals, the United Nations needs about USD 2.5 trillion[i] for the next years till 2030. Although the EU has promised to raise 0.7% of Gross National Income (GDI) for development cooperation, the private sector must be stronger involved covering the drastic financial gap. To achieve this, the concerned institutions (governments, development cooperation, UNIDO, etc.) must offer corporations and NGO’s a suitable framework to motivate them to provide financial and gratuitous investments. Less motivating is currently the low-level cooperation of the UNIDO with Austrian companies. Their manager was stunned to hear from Barbara Kreissler, UNIDO Business Partnership Group at the Energy Forum in Vienna 2015 that she prefers to collaborate with multinational corporations only because Austrian SME’s are too short term minded and they assume wrongly that UNIDO is a funding organization. To dispel this misunderstanding “Smart Engagements Meetings” shall be organized to ascertain the goals, expectations, commitments and “smart engagement.”
http://www.unido.org/businesspartnerships
[i] To the French, German, Austrian and other countries a billion is thousand times larger than the modern English billion, and a trillion is thousand times thousand times larger: 2.5 trillion = 2,500 000 000 000 million
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/words/how-many-is-a-billion
http://ihtd.org/festivalguide/resources/how-much-is-a-trillion-dollars/
Measuring the impact of projects
Measuring impacts of projects were NGOs collaborated with public actors and institutions like UNIDO is not an easy task. Before entering in cooperative projects particular an NGO with a company, sponsor or institution it needs a common understanding and goal; therefore, the communication including “smart engagement” is the most important aspect. The first stage (stop or go) is to investigate what the NGO with the support of a private actor (a company or sponsor) or institution can do to achieve the required impact which is essential for a community or a country. A common goal, – that makes it easier -, is not necessary, but the basis for a good partnership are at least overlapping interests. The success of a project depends on a good project management and controlling having precise Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and Benchmarks for measuring project progress. For measuring the impact it needs to approach a tool-kit containing relevant impact indicators based on the Triple Bottom Line (People, Planet, Profit, PPP) and guidelines such as ISO 26000, UN Global Compact, Austrian Chamber of Commerce – CSR, Industrieellen Vereinigung (IV –resPact), etc., and naturally the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals). To put the “tool-kit” to work it needs more time at the beginning of the project but is less complex and time-consuming at the end. Impact measuring will be successful when the expectations of the stakeholder (stakeholder-mapping, stakeholder-engagement) match. Besides to understand what each partner wants to do carry out, it requires trust between the partners and all stakeholders. The actors may have different backgrounds and goals and report to different stakeholders.About measuring indicators, benchmarks and project progress it needs to rely on local partners. Data collection and the executions of statistical and neuro-fuzzy analysis is an effective way to create indices, indicators, and benchmarks. It needs access to proper data available in institutions like Worldbank, UNIDO and private Data collection. To investigate the links between the impact and indicators, it requires the development of proper instruments for the tool-kit. The WU Vienna works on a project (GLOBAL VALUE – Assessing the Impacts of Multinational Corporations on GLOBAL Development and VALUE Creation) developing a toolkit for measuring the impact of Corporation in developing and emerging countries. It’s not clear to the author if this project includes the impact of NGOs as an important partner in a project. http://www.global-value.eu/
Roland Leithenmayr VfV
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Learn more about it: UNOV United Nations Office at Vienna – http://www.unvienna.org/unov/en/conferences.html
NGO Committee on Sustainable Development Vienna 