THE UNITED NATIONS INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION

One of our international institutional clients, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) is the specialized agency of the United Nations that promotes industrial development for poverty reduction, inclusive globalization and environmental sustainability across the world.

It has developed a close relationship with the European Union, spanning almost three decades as the EU and its Member States remain the largest contributors to UNIDO and as, putting together their unique expertise, both institutions are committed to realizing the Sustainable Development Goals.

Mission

In the framework of a challenging period for the world (i.e. the Covid-19 pandemic) and for UNIDO (i.e. change in leadership), our mission consisted in putting the spotlight on the increased efforts that the UNIDO and the EU had to deploy in order to address the new challenges and pave the way for a global recovery.

Our main objective was to transform the “State of the International Partnership” report into a communication beacon for more than USD 220 million total worth of projects throughout the world focusing on inclusive and sustainable industrial development.

Another objective was to find an innovative approach to bring successes in the field closer to the European public to reward the work of thousands of people on the ground and to showcase that efforts can make a difference.

Approach

To reach the set objectives, we started by assessing how the strong points of the Partnership could generate attractive and compelling communication material.

While leaving space for the accountability reporting, we took a new approach of bringing the beneficiaries of the projects and the implementing partners to the forefront in a much more visual way. We worked closely with the managers of the different projects around the world to showcase pictures witnessing tangible advancements and results in the field and testimonials from the end-of-the-line beneficiaries.

Our approach was to transform this raw material into an attractive and accessible report, an entertaining illustrative communication products for social media and open it up to the wide European public through a travelling physical and virtual photo exhibition telling the life-changing stories from across the world.

Results

We started by working on a creative design of the Annual Report that ensured at the same time a political continuity with the previous reports and an attractive visual focus on the projects implemented across the world. We paid extra care to highlighting the voices coming from the field, giving the report depth, proximity and human touch.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million. We have created an animation video, giving life to hand-drawn illustrations of real stories of the UNIDO-EU Partnership beneficiaries used on the social media handles of the United Nations and the European institutions, of the implementing partners and for further awareness in the programme’s countries.

As a culmination, we transformed the projects’ material into a physical and virtual photo exhibition that was inaugurated at the European Parliament in Brussels by UNIDO & European Commission directors, MEPs, ambassadors. It was also exposed during the biggest forum for international cooperation to development, the European Development Days. Open to the wide general public, the exhibition is meant to be a roadshow of human resilience and development through major European capitals.

Conclusion

Our approach based on a perfect mix between institutional and human stories elements was appreciated both at the highest levels within UNIDO and the EU as well as by the project managers and local implementing partners who could see now the results of their work put in the right spotlight.

The proximity and visibility offered by the project was a FIRST for UNIDO and opened up new channels and new ideas of how to enhance the impact of the UNIDO – EU International Partnership in the coming years.