14-16 November 2022, Nagaland:UNIDO – with support from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) via the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH – established a Global Industrial Policy Advice Facility that aimed to provide developing countries, globally, with policy advice and capacity development towards a socio-ecologically sound transformation of industry. The Facility was designed to provide short-term, demand-driven policy advisory services to support different stages in the policy-making process – from policy design to implementation - and indirectly through sharing of knowledge products and best practices, including policy studies, reviews and briefs.
Leveraging support from this global Policy Advisory Facility, UNIDO organized a capacity building programme for mid-to-senior policymakers from the government of Nagaland during 14-16 November 2022, on an ‘Evidence-based approach to Industrial policy’. The training programme introduced UNIDO’s ‘Enhancing Quality of Industrial Policy (EQuIP) tool box to the trainees as a framework to create ‘intelligence’ as an input into the policy making process. UNIDO experts Anders Isaksson (Chief, Capacity Development and Policy Advice Division) and Christoph Hammer (Industrial policy expert) delivered the technical sessions of the programme. 33 participants from the Directorate of Industries and Commerce; Department of Employment Skill Development; & Entrepreneurship; District Industries Centres; Administrative Training Institute (ATI); Nagaland Toolroom & Training Centre; Labour Department; Planning Department; Nagaland Nagaland Bee & Honey Mission (NBHM); Nagaland Bamboo Development Agency and the Nagaland Industrial Development Corporation Ltd. (NIDC) underwent the training.
The sessions were designed to provide the participants familiarity with (i) indicators for assessing manufacturing performance, trade structure and integration; and (ii) interpretation of trends of these indicators, as well as a comparative analysis with similar or aspirational countries (‘benchmarking’), to identify level/nature of industrial activity, thereby illustrating strengths, weaknesses and scope for expansion/upgrading of industrial activity. Detailed interpretation-based exercises on data at the country level, comparing India with countries such as China, Indonesia, Thailand, as well as drawing comparisons between other countries to reflect wide-ranging interpretation possibilities were conducted. Insights from available country-level data were then contextualized for the State of Nagaland, based on insights gained during previous engagements and interactions between stakeholders and FIC-ISID, in order to provide potential approaches for policy makers to use State-level data to make strategic decisions when deciding how to facilitate structural change and sectoral growth, such that sectors with maximum potential to contribute to development objectives of the state (economic growth / livelihoods generation) could be strategically supported.