The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) is contributing to a series of online training courses and workshops to build national capacity on science, technology and innovation (STI) in developing countries in order to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The training has been organized online amid the current COVID-19 pandemic and is being carried out in partnership with the UN Inter-agency Task Team (IATT) on STI for the SDGs, an operational arm of the Technology Facilitation Mechanism (TFM) mandated under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to mobilize STI for the SDGs.
The three-part, agency-wide interactive webinar series, which has attracted over 50 government officials from 24 countries from Asia, Latin America, Africa and Eurasia, will conclude on December 3 with a session on innovation and entrepreneurship organized by UNIDO.
The final session will focus on how to provide practical and conceptual support for innovative entrepreneurship through policies that create business opportunities for start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) while driving productivity, job creation and economic growth.
The first two sessions dealt with existing approaches for the design and implementation of STI policies and examined case studies on how policies are being geared towards achieving the SDGs. They also discussed how to strengthen and adapt STI policies to deal with current COVID-19 pandemic and any future crisis.
The IATT is currently composed of diverse entities, including among others UNCTAD, UNIDO, UNESCO, UNU MERIT, WIPO, UNDESA, UNEP, World Bank, ITU, UNESCWA, UNECA, UNECLAC, UNECE and UNESCAP. The IATT’s Work Stream 6 is responsible for capacity building on STI for the SDGs, designing and delivering training courses and workshops on STI policy that target policymakers and key STI managers from developing countries.