Capacity Building and Technical Workshops

Throughout 2013 and 2014, UNIDO continued to work with national and regional organizations in a bid to establish and support SPX Centres around the globe to continue to assist government and countries in achieving inclusive and sustainable industrial development. Activities in terms of SPX Capacity Building and technical workshops refer to the main technical assistance components of the programme, i.e. SPX Profiling (including the use of the SPX Management Information System), SPX Benchmarking and SPX Buyer Engagement and Opportunity Development. Some of the main activities undertaken in 2013 and 2014 include:

Capacity building concerning SPX Profiling and SPX Management Information System

  • Technical Workshop undertaken in Qatar, hosted by the Gulf Organization for Industrial Consulting, October 2013 to sensitise current and prospective SPX Centres in the Gulf region about the latest SPX tools and methodologies, particularly the SPX Management Information System.

Capacity building concerning SPX Benchmarking

  • During 2013 and 2014, capacity building workshops focusing on the SPX Benchmarking Tool and including live company benchmarking visits were held in Kenya, Mozambique, Cameroon, Nigeria and Xi’an China. In the ambit of the implementation of the Subcontracting and Partnership Exchange (SPX) programme in these countries, UNIDO held a two week capacity building programme in Nairobi, Maputo, Duala, Lagos and Xi’an, respectively, training business advisers from the SPX Programme host institutions in the adoption of the UNIDO SPX Benchmarking Tool. An intensive first week class room training programme was followed by 'live' benchmarking visits to domestic enterprises in the second week.

Capacity building concerning the SPX Buyer Engagement and Opportunity Development

  • In September 2014, in collaboration with the Centro de Promocao de Investimentos (CPI), host institution of the SPX Mozambique, UNIDO facilitated a five day capacity building workshop in Maputo aimed at further sensitizing main buyer organizations in the country about the service proposal of the SPX Programme. This training served to consolidate SPX Mozambique's role as a reliable partner in the local content development of SPX Mozambique’s main industrial players in sectors such as oil and gas. In the context of this capacity building activity, UNIDO and SPX Mozambique held discussions with main buyer organizations in the Mozambican economy such as Vale, Sasol, Anadarko and Mozal. The aim of these discussions was to explore future areas of collaboration with the SPX Programme in the country with the objective to generate more local content subcontracting to the benefit of domestic SMEs and potential suppliers.