As delivered
Acceptance Speech
by
Mr. Kandeh Yumkella
Director-General of UNIDO
Eleventh Session of the UNIDO General Conference
2 December 2005
Mr. President of the General Conference,
Your Excellency President Paul Kagame,
Vice President of the African Union and President of Rwanda,
Mr. Carlos Magariños,
Outgoing Director-General of UNIDO,
Honourable Ministers and Vice Ministers,
Excellencies,
Permanent Representatives to UNIDO,
Distinguished delegates,
UNIDO colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Nearly 40 years after UNIDO was created, it is a great moment and indeed a privilege
for me to assume leadership of this great Organization as its sixth Director-General.
To be offered a position at any level and in any part of the United Nations system is
an honour, and to be elected by a landslide to lead a specialized agency of 171
Member States, is a great responsibility. It must be one of the toughest, yet also one of
the most rewarding leadership challenges in the international field. Allow me then to
express my sincere thanks and gratitude for the overwhelming expression of
confidence, which you have bestowed upon me.
I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the important contributions of my
predecessors, the late Ibrahim Helmi Abdel Rahman of Egypt (may his soul rest in
peace); Abd-El Rahman Khane from Algeria; Domingo Siazon Jr. from the
Philippines; Mauricio de Maria y Campos from Mexico; and Carlos Alfredo
Magariños from Argentina.. I follow in the footsteps of these great men who fought
difficult battles to sustain and strengthen UNIDO; they also laboured hard (and at
times against great odds) to keep alive the truism that to win the war on poverty, there
is a need for wealth creation. Standing on the shoulders of such predecessors, the
challenge is how to do even better, how to take the work of the Organization to higher
levels, how to ensure that UNIDO continues to make a difference in improving the
lives of people.
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I am grateful to the leadership of the African Union for sending a special envoy, my
brother, His Excellency President Paul Kagame, to my inauguration, and to Dr.
Mohamed ElBaradei, Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency,
for accepting my invitation to this session of our General Conference; my deep
appreciation also goes to Mr. Maria Costa, Executive Director of UNODC, and Mr.
Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, for sending their representatives
and also for the counsel they provided to me during the transition phase. Your
presence here underscores the importance that we, together, attach to genuine
institutional partnerships. More specifically, it is my hope that next year, the Viennabased UN agencies, will usher in a new dawn of cooperation and partnership.
I also wish to record my special thanks to the President of the General Conference and
the Bureau for having conducted the deliberations during this week in such an
excellent manner.
Excellencies, distinguished ladies and gentlemen,
Mark Twain once remarked that it usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a
good impromptu speech. You will appreciate that I have been too busy recently to
have three weeks to prepare a good speech. So, please bear with me, that unlike the
past, I may have to go with the text so that I keep in time. However, I warn the
interpreters that I may have to shift from the text once in a while, because in the last
four or five days I have listened to a large number of delegations from all over the
world and they have had me thinking about many things that I may choose to share
with you.
Your Excellencies,
Five years into a new millennium, we find ourselves in a period of great economic
opportunities. At the same time, we witness persistent and indeed often deepening
poverty in some regions, and certainly not unrelated, many cases of growing conflict
and violence. I have outlined some of the key trends of today’s industrial and
economic landscape in my vision paper entitled “Towards Pro-poor Sustainable
Industrial Development”. Allow me to share a few of the main features with you.
New global industrial realities will shape UNIDO activities in many ways. I will just
highlight a few aspects in telegraphic style: Manufacturing is becoming more
internationalised with productivity growth determining the scope for sustainable
industrial development, both economically and environmentally. Technological
upgrading, including the increased use of information and communication technology,
is becoming critically important. Building industrial capabilities and institutional
capacities is assuming ever greater significance for countries struggling to catch-up.
Trade liberalization, deregulation and private sector dynamism have assumed vital
significance for industrialization. Greater emphasis is given to transparency and
accountability in public and corporate governance as well as in public-private
partnerships. At the same time, the distinction between industry and services is
becoming increasingly blurred and the growing tradability of even highly professional
services is redefining the international division of labour. Moreover, global norms in
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the fields of environment, intellectual property rights, and international product and
process standards, are requiring strict compliance.
While these challenges are not all new, the speed and intensity of change are
formidable and require a well-articulated response from UNIDO. Let me, in a
condensed manner, just touch upon the key dimensions of this response.
Industry and poverty: Industry, and along with it UNIDO, has a crucial role to
play in achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and making
poverty history. This requires implementing pro-poor industrialization and private
sector development strategies; improving governance; strengthening linkages
between industry, agriculture and trade; stimulating the dynamic growth of small
and medium enterprises, in particular in agro-processing; and enhancing the
contribution of industry to health, which is so important for effectively fighting
pandemic disease..
Poverty reduction requires an inclusive development perspective; it calls for
solidarity with those left behind. As the great Arab philosopher Ibn Khaldoun said
back in the 14th century, “The degree of human development in a society, is
measured by the scarcity of its poor and the social solidarity of its citizens.” But it
is also true that poverty cannot be eradicated by solidarity and charity alone. It
requires wealth creation and the building up of productive capacities.
In the last few days I have been listening to ministers from different regions,
including several from Africa. I want to say to you that we should all remember
that poverty is about real people, real flesh and blood. We must go beyond
theoretical concepts and fixed paradigms of the world, and face the realities of
poor people in the regions where they live. In this connection my election as
Director-General must be an inspiration for countries all over the world that are
poor, that are small, that have had conflict, and are trying to recover. I am from
one of those nations. But when I listen to the African ministers and to the Asian
ministers, where in some regions poverty is endemic, they don’t talk to me about
basket weaving or about carving materials in the villages. They talk to me about
modern sector industrial enterprises; SMEs that are linked to global markets,
SMEs that can create jobs for their citizens.
Your Excellencies.
If I can lead this organization, you should understand that there are Africans with
PhDs, MBAs, from the top universities of the world. We have educated work
forces. Their aspiration and their dream is to be like the first world. When we talk
about poverty alleviation therefore, let us look to Latin America and to Asia, and
see that the growth that has been achieved there is due to dynamic small and
medium-sized enterprises. It is not because of basket weaving. Our aspiration
must be to modernize these economies so that they can trade effectively in the
global trading system and create wealth within their economies. I shall spare no
effort to pursue innovative approaches, in particular for rural livelihoods, to
augment the income levels of these poor countries.
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Industry and trade: In just two weeks from now the WTO Ministerial Meeting in
Hong Kong will convene to determine the framework for the outcome of the Doha
Round of trade liberalization during 2006, which has important implications for
industrial development. It is becoming widely accepted that the developing world
needs not just lower tariffs but also improved capacities to produce and trade
industrial products - and indeed this has been UNIDO’s message for 40 years.
Slogans such as “trade your way out of poverty” and “aid for trade” underline and
underscore the centrality of this point and the key links to be kept in mind.
Without industrial or agricultural production there will be little to trade. Hence,
the requisite capacities both to produce and to meet various market entry standards
need to be created or enhanced. This is exactly our role, and it is widely
recognized: in the last five years, under the leadership of Carlos Magariños,
UNIDO has mobilized funding for its trade-capacity building programme to the
tune of almost US$ 55 million, more than any other UN agency, and I hasten to
add, based on a well-defined division of labour with our programme clearly
complementing the activities of other organizations, such as WTO, UNCTAD and
ITC.
I take another departure from my text. I listened to some ministers yesterday from
North Africa, Asia and Latin America, and I heard one common story. They said:
“Mr. Director-General Elect, we are doing well in our economies, but we have a
problem: we have youthful populations. In some economies 50% of the
populations are between 19 and 24-25 years old and well educated. They are not
looking for jobs in the villages. They are looking for jobs in the modern sector.
This is the dilemma we have. We have sound macro policies, we are trading well,
but we need to do much more to create these jobs.”
Your Excellencies.
If we don’t fix the trade issue and help to create dynamic enterprises, you will see
people crossing the rivers, crossing the seas – the Mediterranean, to come to
Europe; crossing the Atlantic to go the US; or go to Asia. People will vote with
their feet. We need to create economic opportunities through trade that has, yes, a
social dimension, a dimension that is rooted in poverty alleviation and wealth
creation. I will do my best to promote this.
Industry and energy: Currently, more than two billion people, the majority of
them living in rural and suburban areas in the developing world, have no access to
commercial forms of energy supplies. Increasing the use of renewable energy can
make a major contribution towards alleviating energy poverty. Sources of
renewable energy, such as solar, wind, biomass, water, can stimulate economic
growth.
Again I depart from my prepared text. I listened to another group of ministers
yesterday. They said: “Mr. Yumkella, in the world today we are discussing
energy security in Europe, North America and Asia, but who is thinking about
energy security for the poorest of the poor?”
In informal discussions His Excellency Mr. ElBaradei and I have thought about
this as well. We must link the energy issue with the economic modernization and
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transformation of poor economies as well. We must link it with the issue of wealth
creation. We cannot close the poverty divide or the digital divide without a
reliable source of cheap energy in developing countries.
When two billion people have no power, and they happen to be the poorest people
in the world, then there is a linkage between poverty and energy. I ask you that
when looking at energy, let us consider energy security for the poor. I spoke to the
Russian, Turkish and other delegations. They have special initiatives, such as our
hydrogen centre in Turkey and the Russian effort to start a discussion on energy
security, and my hope is that our discussions on these issues will soon move
forward.
I also had the opportunity of meeting Enrique Iglesias. We exchanged views on a
number of things. But the first thing he wanted to talk to me about was energy
issues in Latin America. So even other thinkers and other key policy makers agree
with me, that the energy issue is intrinsically linked with the issue of poverty and
growth.
Industry and the environment: UNIDO is recognized as a centre of excellence in
helping industrial stakeholders meet ecological norms and standards, as set out in
the relevant protocols and agreements. The compatibility between ecological
compliance and industrial competitiveness is being increasingly proven by the
impact of our programmes in sustainable energy and climate change, including the
Kyoto and Montreal Protocols, and our environmental management programme.
It is also true that to generate higher GDP we need to use more energy, which also
has negative impacts on the environment. Industry also pollutes. So the link
between growth and environmental degradation continues to be critical as well.
Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen,
Within this overall development context, I shall translate my Vision into action. In
doing so, I will put a strong accent on building the strategic partnerships required to
complement our expertise at UNIDO with the contributions of other development
actors and to achieve mutual reinforcement and ultimately greater impact. At the same
time, I wish to stress that I shall pay special attention to programmatic continuity by
strengthening UNIDO’s present core functions.. The Organization has undergone a
series of difficult reforms over a decade. And they have paid off: The comparative
evaluation undertaken by DFID in 2004 ranked UNIDO among the top six out of 23
major international development agencies.
I wish to thank you, our Member States, for your support and cooperation during the
difficult transition process of UNIDO over the last decade. I wish to commend the
hard work of Carlos Magariños, and indeed the entire staff of UNIDO, for their
dedication and commitment in implementing the UNIDO Business Plan adopted by
the Industrial Development Board in 1997. I will build on the progress made so far
and, where called for, will not hesitate to introduce changes to make UNIDO even
better and stronger.
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I reiterate that a major focus of my administration will be on strengthening
partnerships for making UNIDO a trusted partner in the UN system’s collective
response to promoting sustainable economic development for the poor. This will be
one of the main pillars of my work during the next four years, specifically in the
following four dimensions:
Partnerships with the Member States seeking dialogue and guidance, and
aiming at consensus as already practised during my campaign. In this process,
I shall build on what has been achieved so far and again, I pledge
programmatic continuity in terms of thematic priorities and service modules.
While Aristotle said that change in all things was sweet, we know that change
has a price, transformation has a cost and we have been careful weighing the
costs against the benefits. Organizational change, whether related to priorities,
structures or processes, must make sense, must pay off and must serve a
purpose.
Institutional partnerships within the UN system, inter alia involving renewed
cooperation: with FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization, to strengthen
the linkages among productive sectors; with WTO to enhance trade capacity
building; with UNODC to develop alternative and better livelihoods for
vulnerable societies; with UNESCO on science and technology for
development; and with IAEA in energy planning and water. In this context, I
am pleased to inform you that I will meet the Director-General of WTO, Mr.
Pascal Lamy, as early as February next year. This is already fixed. Contacts
have also been established to arrange for a meeting in the same month with the
UNDP Administrator, Mr. Kemal Dervis. As you can see, we are hitting the
ground running.
Partnerships will also be strengthened with academia and here I will put a
greater accent on research centres and universities in developing countries
themselves. Moreover, I will intensify partnerships with private foundations
with a view to providing a new impetus for funds mobilization.
Partnership among Member States. I am of the strong conviction that
UNIDO must reinforce South-South cooperation. In this, we must go beyond
resolutions. Today’s world offers a broad universe of learning opportunities
where traditional North-South cooperation could usefully be broadened and
supplemented by South-South cooperation. The vast majority of developing
countries lagging behind can learn from the successful experience of those
developing countries, which have made steady progress on the path towards
sustainable industrial development. How have they done it? Which ingredients
are embodied in the Korean miracle; in China’s super-growth; in India’s
quantum transformation; and in the technological dynamism of South Africa
and Brazil? African countries in particular would need to learn from these
successful industrialization processes through the transfer of experience.
I take another departure.
Your Excellencies,
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Some of you may have heard of the story of palm oil: How 30-35 years ago
the Malaysians came to Africa - Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana - looking for new
products. They took palm oil, and applied science and technology to it. At that
time, Nigeria, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire were among the top five palm oil
exporters in the world. But the Malaysians applied science and technology,
and sound management. Today they produce more than 30 products from one
single plant, and are exporting a refined version of palm oil as bio-fuel. We
must use these useful experiences to deal with the issue of trade and poverty
alleviation. There is knowledge in the South.
We also know the story of cassava: Brazil and Thailand are among the largest
producers of Cassava in the world, but Nigeria tops them. But whereas in
Nigeria and the rest of Africa we consume 90-95% of our cassava production
in semi-processed or raw form, in Thailand and Brazil they use it for industrial
purposes and onlu use about 10-20% for immediate consumption. We must
apply science and technology. The technologies are known.
In the same vein, I will challenge my staff: If you are the best technologist, if
you are the best SME manager, prove yourself to me in India and China. Prove
yourself to me in Brazil, because those are the dynamic economies of the
world today. I will encourage them to go beyond stereotypes and also open
their minds to successes in other regions.
Partnership with UNIDO staff. Under my leadership I will challenge my staff
to do their work with pride and with dignity. My management style is one of
participation, empowerment and teamwork. Only motivated and committed
staff can achieve excellence. New avenues for career development and new
approaches to human resource management will be initiated with the highest
degree of transparency and integrity. The importance of field experience and
mobility for staff will be highlighted, and I will introduce a field rotation
scheme - which will not exclude even the senior management of the
Organization. A culture will be nurtured based on motivation rather than
control, on assuming responsibility rather than hiding behind bureaucratic
barriers. In this process, I shall encourage creativity, stimulating learning,
challenging routines, rewarding excellence and search for organizational
innovation. I shall do my utmost to create an enabling work environment in
order for the staff to achieve their full potential.
Finally, Excellencies, distinguished ladies and gentlemen,
You recommended me in June to become the Director-General of UNIDO because of
your belief in me, in the values I stand for. Your election of me today has confirmed
your faith in me. I gladly accept your mandate to lead UNIDO because of my
conviction that industrial development is central to our struggle to make poverty
history. During the next four years, I will need your support to translate our joint
aspirations into concrete programmes. In concluding, may I express my hope and
indeed, expectation that I can count on your goodwill, guidance and support in
moving UNIDO forward to new horizons.
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This great Organization has an important role to play in unleashing the productive
energies of human beings, creating jobs, responding to the immense challenges of
demographic trends, massive urbanization and persistent poverty. And clearly, this
cannot be achieved just by continuing to weave baskets at village level; poor countries
need to move up the technological ladder, add real value to their resource
endowments, and enter a process of sustainable and dynamic growth. Ultimately, this
is what UNIDO under my leadership will stand for: a lasting contribution to the global
fight against poverty in all its dimensions. The stakes could not be any higher, be it in
Africa or in other regions.
I take this opportunity, ladies and gentlemen, to recognise my family, my wife
Philomena, my friends, our Sierra Leonian contingent that have come from different
parts of the world to support us here. It was a tough rise to the top. It took all our
intellectual capabilities, all our energies, not allowing our smallness as a nation or our
poverty to discourage us, but rather to inspire us that yes, even poor people, even poor
countries, small countries can make an intellectual contribution and provide
leadership for development.
Together we can all make a difference.
I thank you very much
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