The Ministry of Trade, Industry, Regional Integration and Employment (MoTIE) in collaboration with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) on Thursday 20^th 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 that was held at the Senegambia Beach Hotel was financially supported by German Development Cooperation (GIZ).

It could be recalled that, UNIDO delivered the first module on  on the Enhancing the Quality of Industrial Policies (EQuIP) toolkit to the Ministry Staff in an online course that took place on the 26^th -30^th July 2022. Thus, the phase II of the training on the EQuIP toolkit build on some of the content that has been covered during the first phase.

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, the 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 the phase II of the training on EQuIP toolkit.

According to him, this has been something that is in their programme in the last two years when the country programme was launched. He added that, it is one of the key component of the country programme because they want to have a core team within the Ministry and also at the investment promotion agency to drive an inform policy making processes especially with regards to industrial development given the prism of Inclusive and sustainable industrial development framework.

In order to develop a sound  industrial policy, he said they need to understand what is happening on  the ground and have  the relevant data so that they can inform the decision makers and also to have their policy that will be speaking to the realities on the ground.

During the course of 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.