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PRODID:unctad.org
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UID:6a7a0694b3b5e
DTSTART:20210910T123000Z
SEQUENCE:0
TRANSP:OPAQUE
DTEND:20210910T140000Z
LOCATION:Online\, 
SUMMARY:UNCTAD15 pre-event: Reclaiming industrial policy for development 
 – putting policymaking theory into practice
CLASS:PUBLIC
DESCRIPTION:Virtually all of today’s advanced economies have completed th
 eir journey from widespread rural poverty to post-industrial wealth employ
 ing policies designed to shift the production structure towards higher pro
 ductivity activities and sectors with progressively\, better paid jobs and
  a greater upgrading potential. Such policies are conventionally called in
 dustrial policies.\n\nFrom the late 1970s onwards\, the debates between pr
 oponents and opponents of industrial policy became sharply ideological. In
  mainstream economic analysis\, in the pronouncements of international dev
 elopment agencies\, and in explicit policy statements by some (especially 
 Anglo-Saxon) governments\, industrial policy\, along with its main archite
 ct\, the state and its role in structural transformation fell in to disrep
 ute\, although it often continued in practice through more ad hoc response
 s to specific economic challenges. Growth theorists worked from standard p
 roduction functions that assumed no special properties for any particular 
 sector\, or any particular role for any actor\, such as the state\, while 
 others pointed to the potential for industrial policy to create ‘rent-se
 eking’ opportunities. In mainstream economies state has been deemed as a
  platform to seek economic rents. \n\nHowever\, failures of most developi
 ng countries to industrialize under neoliberal policies and market governe
 d economies has contrasted with the successes of many East Asian countries
  who pursued well planned policies to industrialize with strong developmen
 tal states. Hence\, whether in the context of meeting the SDGs\, tackling 
 the climate emergency\, rewiring supply chains in response to the Covid-19
  crisis or leveraging new digital technologies\, industrial policy has ret
 urned to centre stage of debates over the direction of development strateg
 y at the national level. International organizations have become more open
  to discussing industrial policy in developing countries\, in part thanks 
 to China’s remarkable transformation over the last forty years\, but als
 o\, as UNIDO has insisted\, in the context of a climate emergency that req
 uires a rapid shift from high- to low-carbon growth paths in both develope
 d and developing countries.\n\nUNCTAD’s World Investment Report 2018 ide
 ntified eighty-four countries (accounting for 90 per cent of global GDP) t
 hat had adopted formal industrial policies in the five years to 2018. A jo
 int UNCTAD-ILO volume concluded “discussion among economists and policy 
 makers is now increasingly shifting away from whether or not to have indus
 trial policy and towards a focus on the objectives and scope of industrial
  policies and “how to do it” in a way appropriate to each country`s co
 nditions”. This is a new consensus across a broad spectrum of economists
  and policy makers on the on the relevance\, desirability\, and practicabi
 lity of industrial policy.\n\nIt is therefore of primary importance suppor
 ting developing countries in the formulation and implementation of industr
 ial policy. This is why\, in the framework of the OECD Initiative for Poli
 cy Dialogue on Global Value Chains (GVCs) Production Transformation and De
 velopment\, UNCTAD has participated to the development of a policy assessm
 ent and guidance tool\, the Production Transformation Policy Reviews (PTPR
 s)\, which aims at providing a guiding framework to identify options and a
 ctionable policy responses to promote structural transformation and upgrad
 ing\, based on comparative assessment of countries’ assets\, upgrading p
 otential and priorities. To the date four PTPRS have been carried out by t
 he OECD\, UNCTAD and UNIDO in Latin American and African countries\, with 
 the participation of the respective UN-Regional Commissions.\n\nObjectives
 :\n\nThe purpose of this webinar is to discuss how developing countries ar
 e concretely taking advantage of the new consensus around industrial polic
 y in their policymaking and examine how the PTPRs has aided beneficiary co
 untries in the effort to update the policy toolset at their disposal. The 
 event will represent the closure of a series of webinars that\, tapping in
 to the expertise of the recently launched Oxford Handbook on Industrial Po
 licy\, explore some of the challenges and areas of debate around industria
 l policy making.\n\nThe key objectives and expected outcomes of the event 
 are the following:\n\n\nTo emphasize what is new in the “new consensus
 ” around industrial policy and to asses and compare the challenges in th
 e design and application of industrial policy in different economic and po
 litical circumstances.\n \nTo discuss the experiences of the different co
 untries that went through the policy review exercise to increase knowledge
  sharing and peer-learning\, and create an open dialogue in which member s
 tates can learn from different experiences of industrialization including 
 challenges.\n \nTo examine the role that interagency cooperation can play
  to support development policy making\, and South- South cooperation\, in 
 such a difficult historical juncture\n\n\nFormat:\n\nThe event will draw h
 eavily on the contributors to The Oxford Handbook on Industrial Policy as 
 well as on government officials of PTPRs beneficiary countries\, and will 
 aim to target policy makers in developing countries\, as well as academics
  and other stakeholders such as civil society organizations\, activists an
 d young scholars.\n\nWatch event recording\nhttps://youtu.be/QR8mlBGq9vc\n
 \nView meeting on unctad.org\nhttps://unctad.org/meeting/unctad15-pre-even
 t-reclaiming-industrial-policy-development-putting-policymaking-theory
DTSTAMP:20260810T171252Z
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