The Italian Development Cooperation contributed more than €4.55 million to two United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) projects in Egypt and Iraq.
A signing ceremony to launch the projects took place at the UNIDO headquarters.
The Egypt project was developed after an in-depth analysis of the Egyptian tomato value chain. Egypt is the world’s fifth-largest producer of tomatoes producing about eight million tonnes of fresh tomatoes per year. Suitable climate, dual seasonality and fertile lands attributed to the success of the crop. However, only three to four per cent of the tomato crop is processed, with the processing sector affected by lack of integration with the supply chain.
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The project will boost the linkages between supply and processing factories, improve the technical skills of workers and managers in the factories, improve the quality of production and processing of tomatoes and expand existing marketing strategies so as to tap into new markets. The project aims at adding value and improving youth’s technical capacities and in the long run increasing employability and job opportunities.
Iraq’s project aims at promoting existing and potential investments in the country so as to expand private sector shares to the contribution of the country’s GDP and to create employment opportunities to alleviation poverty and speed up economic growth of Iraq.
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In 2018 Italy was the largest governmental donor providing voluntary contributions to UNIDO. In his statement at the signing ceremony, UNIDO Director General, LI Yong said “Italy has always been an effective advocate of UNIDO and of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We share a common vision to promote inclusive and sustainable industrial development to tackle inequalities at all levels.”
In his statement the Permanent Representative of Italy to the International Organizations in Vienna, Ambassador Alessandro Cortese said, “We believe both projects in Egypt and Iraq represent well our longstanding cooperation with UNIDO and the Italian way of “doing business” with our highly qualified experts and advanced technologies while contributing to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.”
