UNIDO/KCG Conference takes place next week

14th September 2017
KCG Secretary

The Conference “Developing Inclusive and Sustainable Global Value Chains in the Digital Age”, which KCG organizes jointly with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), will take place on 18-19 September 2017 in the Kieler Kaufmann Hotel.

We bring together experts from academia, politics, business, international organizations and NGOs in order to discuss how global value chains (GVC) can be shaped so as to contribute to an inclusive and sustainable development of all countries.

The conference agenda (downloadable from here) is centered around four panel discussions, each addressing a different aspect of the main question. In addition, there will be two short sessions of individual presentations from academic experts, with ample opportunity for open discussion.

The purpose of the first panel session (Sept 18, 9:00-11:00 a.m.) is to consider options as to how governments, international organizations and pri­vate business can make GVCs more inclusive and sus­tainable. The focus is on developing countries’ perspective.

The second panel session (Sept 18, 11:15 a.m. – 1.15 p.m.) will address the question as to how national and international policymakers can fos­ter the creation of inclusive and sustainable linkages along the GVCs operated by multinational enterprises. The fo­cus is on developing countries and, in particular, Sub-Saharan Africa.

The third panel session (Sept 18, 4:15-6:15 p.m.) is joint with the workshop “Shaping Digitalization at a Global Level”, which runs parallel at the same venue. This panel session is to discuss options as to how digital technologies can be further de­veloped and applied in different stages of GVCs in all countries involved to help realize more inclusive and sustainable GVCs.

Finally, the fourth panel session (Sept 19, 10:45-12:45 a.m.) aims to draw general lessons from Asia that can be applicable to other less developed regions of the world, in order to help them make a major inroad into technological upgrading.

We kindly invite those who cannot attend the conference to follow the livestreaming of the opening talks and the first two panel sessions on UNIDO’s Facebook page. For more on this please see UNIDO news.