By Mariatou Ngum
The Ministry of Trade, Industry, Regional Integration and Employment (MoTIE) in collaboration with the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) on Thursday, 20th October 2022 concluded a four-day capacity building on enhancing the Quality of Industrial Policies (EQuIP) toolkit for the staff of the Ministry.
The training, held at Senegambia Beach Hotel, was financially supported by German Development Cooperation (GIZ).
As policymakers, the training will help the staff to formulate evidence-based strategies for inclusive and sustainable industrial development.
In his remarks, Mr. Omar Badjie, Director at the Directorate of Industry and Investment Development, MoTIE, welcomed the participants who were drawn from MoTIE, the Competition Commission and GIEPA as well as the trainers from UNIDO on phase II of the training on EQuIP toolkit.
According to him, the training is part of the programme established in the past two years when the country programme was launched. He added that it is one of the key components of the country’s programme because they want to have a core team within the Ministry and also at the investment promotion agency that will help to drive informed policy-making processes, especially in the areas of industrial development.
In order to develop a sound industrial policy, he said they need to understand what is happening on the ground with wrelevant data so that they can inform the decision-makers as well as come up with a policy that speaks to the realities on the ground.
During the 4-day training, Franz Brugger and Keno Haverkamp both UNIDO experts exposed participants to evidence-based industrial policy-making and EQuIP, diversification and technology, employment and gender, industry and environment and practicalities of effective industrial policy implementation.
UNIDO had delivered the first module on the Enhancing the Quality of Industrial Policies (EQuIP) toolkit to the Ministry Staff in an online course that took place on the 26th -30th of July 2022. Thus, phase II of the training on the EQuIP toolkit built on some of the content that has been covered during the first phase.
