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UNECE AND UNCTAD JOIN FORCES IN ENHANCING THE PRIVATE SECTOR’S ROLE IN ADVANCING
TRADE FACILITATION


UNECE AND UNCTAD JOIN FORCES IN ENHANCING THE PRIVATE SECTOR’S ROLE IN ADVANCING
TRADE FACILITATION

SDGsUN/CEFACT
Sustainable DevelopmentTrade

18 May 2022


16 May 2022, Geneva – participants from around the globe representing
governments, National Trade Facilitation Bodies (NTFB) experts and private
sector joined the online roundtable organized by the UN Economic Commission for
Europe (UNECE) and the UN Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in the
framework of the 38th United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and
Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) Forum.

Titled “Encouraging Private Sector Participation in National Trade Facilitation
Bodies”, the roundtable webinar brought together speakers from Canada, Georgia,
Honduras, Kenya, and the Kyrgyz Republic who shared their countries’ experiences
on increasing private sector participation in the NTFBs and government’s
engagement with trade industry. They were in one voice on the essential role of
private sector in collaborating with government agencies to formulate trade
facilitation reforms and initiatives for more efficient cross-border trade
formalities and procedures. The objective of the roundtable was to address
challenges for the private sector to fully participate and contribute to the
work of the NTFBs.

The moderator of the session, Christopher O’Toole from the Permanent Mission of
Canada in Geneva and Chair of the WTO Trade Facilitation Committee, stressed
that it takes time and effort to build a trusted dialogue between private and
public sectors. Successful collaboration depends on the convergence of
government agendas and those of the private sector.  Identifying a shared agenda
for collaboration can substantially galvanize momentum to progress with NTFBs
objectives and activities.

In her opening remarks, Ms. Sue Probert, UN/CEFACT Chair highlighted the
importance of national capacity-building activities, as implemented by UNECE and
UNCTAD, and emphasized that it “raises awareness on the importance of
public-private sector partnership for efficient and resilient trade facilitation
policies”. UN/CEFACT recognised the importance of private public collaboration
already in the 1970s and recommended that governments set up National trade
facilitation bodies with private and public membership in the UNECE Rec. No 4.
Whilst more than 100 national trade facilitation bodies now exist, private
sector is not always well represented and actively participating in the
activities of these bodies. This limits the effectiveness, sustainability and
dynamic of the NTFB. Birgit Viohl from UN/CEFACT presented findings from
UN/CEFACT White paper on  Encouraging Private Sector Participation in National
Trade Facilitation Bodies stating that knowledge and language gaps, costs of
participation, and diverging interest hamper private sector participation.

Speakers from Kenya and Honduras shared their experiences with the UNCTAD reform
tracker platform that has become an indispensable tool in their work to monitor
and drive progress in implementing the WTO TFA and regional obligations as well
as national trade facilitation reforms and initiatives. The previous situation
where a limited number of in-person NTFB official meetings were held per year is
being addressed significantly with the information exchange and project
management relevance of the reform tracker platform. Both private sector and
government agencies witnessed that throughout the year the platform had enhanced
transparency, encouraged communication and information sharing, ensured
knowledge transfer, and facilitated identifying shared agenda that galvanize
effective result-based cooperation and collaboration among all members of NTFBs.
It also improved accountability and created a sense of ownership from the
respective countries over the attained progress and achievements.

Furthermore, country representatives and private sector stakeholders shared
concrete case studies from their national experience on enhancing the role of
the private sector and facilitating their participation in the NTFBs. They
stressed the need for sustainable cooperation between public and private sectors
within the NTFBs. As regards improving the sustainability of the NTFBs, they
noted there is a need to enhance transparency, accountability, political
commitment, resource allocation, and using incentives as a means to drive
private sector commitment. There was also the need to ensure the "tone at the
top" from senior officials acknowledges the inclusivity and feedback of the
private sector on relevant national policies.  

The UN interalia promotes public-private partnership, through UNECE key
recommendations, such as Rec No.40 and Rec No.41. The purpose of this
recommendations is to facilitate effective consultations between governments and
business communities and to inform government agencies and private sector
stakeholders about key components. The recommendations demonstrate the potential
benefits of public-private partnership in Trade Facilitation, in terms of
enhancing open and transparent markets, bringing cost-effective processes
through more effective service delivery, increasing competition, and attracting
foreign investment and platforms for safer, more resilient, and efficient trade
value chains. The work of UN/CEFACT is particularly appreciated through its
global mandate where it gathers worldwide experts from the private and public
sectors to develop inclusive and efficient trade facilitation policies.

In addition, through UNCTAD Empowerment programme for national trade
facilitation committees (NTFCs), UN also promotes the strengthening of capacity
of members of NTFCs to galvanize a more dynamic cooperation and collaboration
between public and private sector members of the NTFCs in furthering their trade
facilitation endeavours.

Jointly, UNECE, UN/CEFACT and UNCTAD will continue making impact on enhancing
the role of the private sector in facilitating trade and accelerating progress
towards achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

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