The International Conferences on Sustainable Industrial Areas (SIA) bring experts from all over the world together to discuss recent trends, best practices and future development of SIA. The Conferences serve as an international platform for exchanging knowledge about Sustainable Industrial Development of Industrial Areas worldwide. In the past, there have been similar International SIA Conferences in India, China, Indonesia, Turkey, Mexico, Morocco and Egypt.
This year´s International SIA Conference (the 8th conference in row) will take place in Ethiopia and will address the topics “Industrial Transformation, Employment Creation and Environmental Innovation” as Ethiopia and other African countries are strongly committed to move forward on those topics.
The conference is being organized by the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), The World Bank Group / International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Department of International Development/UK Aid – together with the Ethiopian Investment Commission (EIC) and the Industrial Park Development Cooperation (IPDC).
The thematic topics of the conferences represent important Ethiopian industrial development goals:
Industrial Transformation
- Sustainable Industrial Areas are an appropriate instrument for sustainable transition from agricultural to industrial economy
- Sustainable Industrial Areas act as economic catalysts that provide social and economic infrastructure, build up a favourable business environment, improve competitiveness, generate employment and attract local and foreign investments
- Sustainable Industrial Areas are able to become the nucleus of broader industrial clusters dedicated to environmental and social innovation and transformation processes
- Sustainable Industrial Areas are an important pillar of sustainable industrial development in Africa.
Employment Creation
- Sustainable Industrial Areas are able to significantly generate decent employment and to give economic perspective to job seeking youth
- Sustainable Industrial Areas offer programs for skills/vocational training and development thus reacting to the needs of companies and investors for skilled labour
- Sustainable Industrial Areas create indirect employment through embedding in the local value chains and regional clusters thus using local suppliers and service providers
- Sustainable Industrial Areas strengthen labour and social standards in the industry.
Environmental Innovation
- Sustainable Industrial Areas aim at managing and mitigating potential negative environmental impacts of industrial production
- Sustainable Industrial Areas implement appropriate technical solutions to take care that energy and resources are saved, and water, wastewater and waste are managed sustainably
- Park management takes over responsibility to monitor environmental impacts (air, water and soil pollution), sets environmental standards and gives guidance to the park industries
- A Code of Conduct dedicated to the principles of sustainability supports an environmental labelling of the park, its manufacturing processes and products creating a valuable marketing argument for embedded park companies.
The SIA Conference will address these topics in form of expert presentations, panel discussions, workshops and an exhibition platform