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UNECE to assist Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to unlock economic growth through innovation

Innovation, in the long run, is the single most important driver of economic growth. This is true for the most advanced economies, where innovation means the commercialization of cutting-edge technologies. It is also true for less advanced economies, where innovation primarily means the adoption and adaptation of technologies already proven elsewhere. Moreover, innovation will be critical in making the world’s consumption and production patterns ecologically sustainable without compromising economic development. At the same time, there are huge differences across countries in their ability to generate and use innovations. These differences can be traced back to differences in policy environments, some of which provide strong support for innovation, while others do not.


Innovation has been given a high profile in the Sustainable Development Goals which the UN will adopt at the end of September 2015. In the coming months, as part of its programme to support innovation in Member States, UNECE will be assisting Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in improving their innovation policies and performance in support of sustainable development.  


The Innovation Performance Review of Tajikistan, presented at the ninth session of the UNECE Committee on Innovation, Competitiveness and Public-Private Partnerships on 3-4 September 2015, recommends that the country focus on issues that are critical for the functioning of the national innovation system and which would produce visible results quickly without requiring substantial financial and human resources. As a lower middle income economy, Tajikistan’s innovation policy agenda has constraints linked to a substantial lack of: skills; knowledge; resources; incentives; and opportunities for innovative business development. The most promising policy reforms are those that relax these constraints. Because of this, the Review focuses on policies that would lead to the upgrading of skills, facilitating access to knowledge, making additional resources available, using existing resources more efficiently, and improving incentives and opportunities in the business sector. Over the coming years, UNECE will provide policy advice and capacity building to the Government of Tajikistan to assist the country in implementing the recommendations from this Review.


The Governments of Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan have invited UNECE to review their innovation policies and performance and to assist with policy reforms on this basis. The Government of Belarus has requested a second review, five years after their inaugural review, in order to assess progress made since then and to identify areas for future policy attention.


Innovation Performance Reviews benchmark national innovation policies against international good practice and provide peer-reviewed policy recommendations on this basis. So far, UNECE has reviewed Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Ukraine.


For more information, please visit: http://www.unece.org/innovationperformancereviews.html

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