The United Nations Industrial Development Organization ( UNIDO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that promotes industrial development for poverty reduction, inclusive globalization and environmental sustainability. The responsibility of UNIDO is to contribute to inclusive and sustainable industrial development by improving the environmental performance, resource productivity and safety of existing industries, as well as by supporting the creation of new industries providing environmental goods and services. Over the past three decades, UNIDO has promoted the mainstreaming of resource efficiency and cleaner production in industries and industrial parks located in developing and emerging economies, through pilot demonstrations as well as global knowledge and dissemination projects. The first UNIDO pilot initiatives on eco-industrial parks ( EIP ) were implemented in 2010 in India ( VadodaraAnkleshwar Industrial Area and Dahej Petroleum, Chemical and Petrochemicals Investment Region, in the state of Gujarat ).
The same year, UNIDO introduced the concept of EIPs in Tunisia, targeting two industrial parks ( Bizerte Business Park and Djebel Oust and Bir M’cherga Industrial Zone). Since 2012, the work of UNIDO in the area of eco- industrial parks has expanded under the joint global Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production ( RECP ) programme with the United Nations Environment Programme ( UNEP ), funded by the Swiss State Secretariat of Economic Affairs ( SECO). This programme conducted a global assessment of eco-industrial parks in developing countries, targeting 33 industrial parks in 12 countries ( UNIDO, 2016a). Since 2015, UNIDO has implemented EIP pilot projects in six countries under the global RECP programme ( China, India, Morocco, South Africa, Colombia and Peru). Moreover, an EIP country project is implemented in Viet Nam, funded by the Global Environment Facility ( GEF) and SECO.