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Economic development

Building Local Value through Skills Development at the LKDF Forum 2025

Strategic Insights

— 1 min read

The Learning and Knowledge Development Facility (LKDF) Forum 2025, convened by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), underscored the importance of localizing skills and competencies across value chains. The event, held in Gothenburg, Sweden, brought together representatives from public and private sectors, civil society, academia, and international organizations to discuss the role of skills development in enabling multinational corporations and developing countries to thrive. Participants emphasized the need for systemic approaches to workforce development, strong policy frameworks, and transparent supply chains to support sustainable value addition.

Key Takeaways:

  • The LKDF Forum 2025 highlighted the critical role of localizing skills and competencies across value chains, particularly in manufacturing, energy, healthcare, and industrial processing.
  • Achieving sustainable, ethical supply chains requires transforming industrial processes, business relations, and workforce skills, with local value addition key to reducing dependency on external inputs and boosting resilience.
  • UNIDO's Director General Gerd Müller called for greater investment in skills for responsible, future-oriented supply chains, declaring that "skills development is absolutely key" for building competitive and resilient supply chains.
  • Maria Tegborg, Acting Head of the Global Department of Sida, emphasized the role of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in bridging skills gaps and improving economic outcomes.
  • Virpi Stucki, UNIDO, stressed the need for strong policy frameworks and transparent supply chains to support sustainable value addition, noting that "strong policy direction and stakeholder engagement along the way" are necessary for developing the labor force.
  • Enabel's Charlotte Vanstallen emphasized the importance of anchoring programs in local priorities and ambitions, stating that "it all starts, I think, with the local objective and the local focus and the [local] ambition."
  • Caterina Occhio, Economic Inclusion and ESG Advisor at UNIDO, highlighted the power of social procurement models to professionalize informal labor, raise compliance standards, and promote living wages.

Statistics:

  • 37 in-person participants and 231 online attendees from public and private sectors, civil society, academia, and international organizations attended the LKDF Forum 2025.
  • 13 new Public-Private Development Partnerships (PPDP) project ideas were generated during the co-creation workshop facilitated by UNIDO's LKDF team in partnership with the Volvo Group.

Sources:

  • M2 PressWIRE (2025). Building local value through skills development at the Learning and Knowledge Development Facility (LKDF) Forum 2025. (Archived URL provided)
  • United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) (no date). Learning and Knowledge Development Facility (LKDF) Forum 2025. (No archived URL provided)

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