LI Yong, Director General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), believes that Africa must industrialize to fulfill its economic potential Africa remains the poorest and most vulnerable region in the world. The slow pace of progress in poverty reduction is mirrored in low industrialization levels across the continent. Advancing inclusive and sustainable industrialization can help to increase economic diversification and value addition, create jobs, and hence reduce poverty in Africa. Or in other words: in order to fully benefit from its rich natural resources and fulfill its economic potential, Africa must industrialize. I am therefore pleased that, last July, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution, which reaffirms the importance of industrialization in supporting Africa’s own efforts towards
sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth and accelerated development, and which proclaimed the period of 2016-2025 as the Third Industrial Development Decade for Africa.
Achieving the 2030 Agenda The adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as well as of the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, signal a transition to a new universal development paradigm in the international community. They attest to a renewed commitment to strengthen the economic dimension of sustainable development, in balance with the social and environmental dimensions, and ➤
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