Accreditation of EQuIP Policy Facilitators

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH are currently looking for experts in the area of evidence-based industrial policymaking.

Pre-selected experts will undergo a thorough training and assessment and, upon successful completion, be accredited as official Enhancing the Quality of Industrial Policies (EQuIP) Policy Facilitators. As such they would be eligible to be hired under UNIDO and GIZ projects to perform industrial policy reviews and capacity building using the methodology laid out in the EQuIP toolkit.

Background

Despite the shift in the discourse on and acceptance of industrial policies, a key challenge for many countries is the lack of appropriate capacities to independently undertake thorough industrial diagnostics and to follow a strategy and policy formulation process that is sufficiently evidence-based. The shortage of adequately trained analysts often leads to an extensive dependency on international advisors, unrealistic strategic objectives, and ad-hoc and uninformed decision-making. The result, in many cases, is the formulation of industrial strategies and policies, which do not reflect the priorities, and realities of the country in question and, consequently, the deployment of inappropriate policy tools.

Therefore, UNIDO is organizing a programme to assess and accredit a group of individuals able to provide industrial policy advice, facilitate policy dialogue among different stakeholders and build the capacities of decisionmakers and technocrats in developing countries, world-wide, using the EQuIP approach and methodology. This is supported by GIZ on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for International Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

The toolkit

The “Enhancing the Quality of Industrial Policies (EQuIP)” toolkit supports policymakers in developing countries to formulate and design evidence-based strategies for inclusive and sustainable industrial development and thereby strengthens the ability of, especially lower income countries, to manage their own future and to have a larger say in strategy-setting, policy formulation and their engagement with development partners.

Since its inception, the EQuIP toolkit has been deployed in numerous countries globally. It is an integral part of most of UNIDO’s industrial policy related projects and activities.

Today, the EQuIP toolkit consists of 12 analytical tools, a conceptual framework and a separate tool on how to design a transformative industrial policy package. UNIDO is also currently working on a revamp of the entire toolkit which will go side-by-side with the accreditation programme.

All tools are freely available on the EQuIP website: https://www.equip-project.org/.

The accreditation process

The accreditation programme will include the following steps:

Application process

Applications need to be submitted through this form: https://www.unido.org/form/EQuIP_registration

The call for applications will be closed on 15 June 2021.

Selection

Potential candidates will be selected by a jury panel comprising UNIDO and GIZ representatives. If necessary UNIDO will schedule brief online interviews.
Please note that UNIDO is striving for a balanced selection geographically and by gender.

Successful candidates will be informed by the end of June 2021.

Online briefing/training

For those selected candidates who are not familiar with the EQuIP toolkit, a number of online briefing sessions will be offered where they can discuss the tools/indicators. Preliminary knowledge of the entire toolkit will be a prerequisite for participating in those sessions and thus familiarizing oneself with the toolkit after being pre-selected is a must.

In-residence assessment in Vienna

After completing the online briefings, candidates will be invited to an event in Vienna. The event will last five days and will take place at UNIDO’s premises in Fall 2021. UNIDO will fully cover participation costs, travel and accommodation.
Should travel restrictions due to the current Covid-19 pandemic prevail, alternative means of delivery such as online webinars and conference calls will be considered.

Accreditation of candidates

After the assessment event,

Selected candidates that have previous field experience in policy design using EQuIP while working with UNIDO and/or GIZ will be accredited as official EQuIP Policy Facilitators;
Selected candidate without prior experience from working with UNIDO and/or GIZ, will qualify as EQuIP Policy Co-Facilitators and will become full Facilitators only after having been assigned to at least two policy design events.

Requirements

The accreditation addresses analysts and professionals from developed and developing countries globally.
Potential candidates should have the following set of qualifications:

Have at least five years of practical experience working on industrial policy formulation/reform, policy planning, industrial policy M&E, economic development policies, and/or similar;
Proven academic expertise in development economics (including a degree in economics or similar) would constitute a distinct asset;
Previous exposure to EQuIP (e.g. as EQuIP Analytical (co-)Trainers) or its predecessor, the Competitive Industrial Performance (CIP) index would constitute an asset.

Benefits of being an official EQuIP Policy Facilitator

As an accredited EQuIP Policy Facilitator you join a pool of exclusive set of individuals who will be given preferential treatment when either UNIDO or GIZ is hiring external consultants, at internationally competitive rates, to provide policy advice and capacity development.

While both organizations cannot guarantee full-time employment for facilitators after being accredited, there will be plenty of opportunities to engage in the future. Many UNIDO projects as well as GIZ programmes feature policy components and the EQuIP brand will be further promoted in future activities.