"Capability building for catching-up: Historical, empirical and policy dimensions"

Summary: "IDR 2005, entitled Capability building for catching-up: Historical, empirical and policy dimensions, devotes a special section to assess lessons learned from catching-up experiences throughout modern history. From these experiences it draws a framework for operational policy analysis as well as a methodology for the assessment of capability building needs, thus filling a gap in the current understanding of economic development. The Report also includes a section monitoring and assessing global industrial trends, following the tradition of previous reports."

From the Executive Summary: "The Report provides a framework for operational policy analysis and a guide for the assessment of capability building needs to help overcome evident limitations in the current understanding of economic development. Thus, the Second Part of the Special Topic focuses on the interactions between the knowledge, business innovation and policy making subsystems, and addresses the policy capabilities needed to match the demand and supply of innovative resources – one of the most intractable problems still plaguing policymaking in the developing world. Two specific areas, standards and food safety, are explored to highlight these interactions and test the suggested policy analysis framework."

The Industrial Development Report is UNIDO's Flagship Publication. January, 2006.