Documents

WP.6 3^rd Forum, Green, digital transformation, 3 April 2024

Gender consideration for green, digital transformation

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Speaker bio

Peter Morfee is the Principal Technical Advisor with Energy Safety, WorkSafe New Zealand, the Government Regulatory Agency responsible for the safety of the general application of electricity and gas in New Zealand. He is a graduate electrical and mechanical engineer with an interest in aviation. Having trained in the application of early computer technology to power system data capture, he has focused on safety Regulatory system design and the application of risk management principles to good regulatory practice.  

Starting out with a focus on New Zealand, over 30 years in a regulatory role, he has expanded his interest firstly to Australia and then more broadly internationally, being involved in NZ’s FTA with China, and electrical equipment safety cooperation within the APEC economies and is now participating in the UNECE work under WP-6, the working Party on Regulatory Cooperation and Standardization Policies where the application of risk management to regulatory system design fits nicely with their work and where he has expanded his influence into Gender Responsive Standards. He has often been described as a dinosaur owner who dabbles in the safety of almost every application of electricity from Medical electrical applications, through mining and tunnelling to high power transmission harmonics.  

He is the principal architect of New Zealand’s electrical safety regulatory system. It’s all the same, there is little that is new, he says. For example, the safety systems used for EV charging apply the same principles that are used for underground mining.

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Summary of the presentation

The Principal Technical Advisor of WorkSafe New Zealand underlined the changing risks that will occur as electricity replaces liquid and gaseous fuels and the importance of developing a strategy of gender resilience as the changes occur. He drew upon data from the New Zealand experience, but intentionally challenged the safety systems used internationally. He demonstrated measuring tolerance through the current safety system and the changes that are already occurring, and suggested where changes may need to be introduced as we move forward.

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WP.6, ToS-GRS, 5 June 2024

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Summary of the presentation

Ms. Wende provided a brief introduction to the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB, the national metrology institute of Germany). PTB has nearly 50 projects in more than 80 countries around the world, representing a financial volume of 18-28 million euros annually. PTB often partners with GIZ and the German development bank for these.

PTB is under the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). BMZ together with the Foreign Affairs office initiated the process of developing the policy guideline on gender equality in their ministries. The German government is a strong advocate for equal participation by all people in social, political and economic life, irrespective of gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, skin colour, disability or other characteristics. This resulted in the BMZ Strategy for Feminist Development Policy (March 2023), the development of which included contributions from PTB, civil society and partner countries. 

PTB integrated the core principles and approach of this Policy, which include: human rights based approach, intersectional approach, multilateral, cooperation with civil society, inclusive and non-binary approach, gender-transformative approaches, post-colonial and anti-racist approach. 

The policy also contains four action areas:

(1) rights, resources and representation,

(2) anchoring a feminist approach across the BMZ portfolio, targeted promotion of gender 2 / 4 equality,

(3) building international alliances,

(4) leading by example, an institution fit to deliver.

There are common markers defined under the OECD which define the objectives of a project. Concerning gender equality, BMZ is using this as an indicator to follow projects. 93% of all projects must be at least a “GE1” marker (gender is an important secondary objective, but not decisive; but significant contributions can be expected) or a “GE2” marker (gender equality is the principal objective of the project).

The projects of PTB are technical by nature, and integrating this approach is a new area. Here are some examples of the types of projects and possible measures currently being rolled out:

• Standardization: (1) provide advisory services to standardization organizations concerning the involvement of relevant stakeholders; (2) raise awareness; (3) provide financial support for participation of marginalized groups and/or feminist actors; (4) break down further barriers to the development of gender-responsive standards.

• Value chain: (1) both of these criteria are met: (quality infrastructure can contribute to economic development thanks to the sector and/or value chain ; the sector and/or value chain are where women and marginalized groups work); (2) if these criteria are not met, to investigate whether it is possible to contribute to making the sector/value chain more accessible for women and marginalized groups.

• SME sector: (1) track and compensate for non-intended effects on the informal sector; (2) involve women-led enterprises and business associations in the demand analysis; (3) prioritize women-led/women-owned SMEs.

• Exchange formats (for women) in the quality infrastructure sector: (1) identify and support existing networks/platforms; (2) support establishment of networks and platforms

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WP.6 34^th Session, ToS-GRS, 27 August 2024

Gender-Responsive Standards
Developing Gender Action Plans

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Speaker bio

Monica is Director of Cooperation and International Relations within the Spanish Association for Standardization (UNE) since December 2017. She joined AENOR's Standardization Division in 2002. She was Coordinator of the EU's EUROMED Quality Programme in Brussels in 2008 and 2009.

She coordinates international relations in UNE and participates in the CEN/CENELEC Policy and Strategy Group and in the ISO Policy Committee DEVCO. She manages the development of technical assistance activities in UNE covering projects in America, Africa, the Balkans and Eastern Europe focused on strengthening quality infrastructure institutions and implementation of free trade agreements.

She is member of the equality and inclusivity commission of UNE.

Mónica Sanzo is a Mining Engineer (Universidad Politecnica – Madrid) and completed a year of specialisation in energy and gas (École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Nancy – France).  

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Summary of the presentation

The Director of Cooperation and International Relations of the Spanish Association for Standardization (UNE) stressed that UNE is firmly committed to gender equality. In alignment with its Strategy 2025, UNE signed the ECE Declaration on GRS. In 2022, UNE developed its own GAP with specific actions to be developed until 2026 on training, recruitment, work balance and promotion among other activities. Gender issues can have an impact in many situations and UNE believes that standards can serve as a lever for a paradigm shift, by taking into account all realities and promoting diversity and inclusion. UNE has its share of responsibility to promote standards that integrate a gender perspective, thus contributing to the fulfilment of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 on gender equality.

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WP.6 34^th Session, ToS-GRS, 27 August 2024

ISO Strategy on Gender

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Speaker bio

Rachel Miller Prada’s career has been centered around working with developing countries through ISO, the United Nations and other international development organizations. 

With degrees in law and sustainable development, she is committed to the UN SDGs through developmental work. 

At ISO, Rachel is a manager in Capacity Building, and is also the manager of the ISO Gender Action Plan. Through these two themes, she is committed to ensuring that ISO standards and subsequent capacity building is done through inclusive and sustainable means, to ensure that no one is left behind.   

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Summary of the presentation

The Capacity Building Project Manager of ISO presented the ISO GAP which is in its third iteration and is a key strategic guidance for ISO and its gender work. She reflected on the catalyst that started the focus on gender in its standardization work, linked directly to the ECE Declaration on Gender-Responsive Standards and Standards Development. This concept has evolved into a key strategic priority for the organization. She explained the key areas of work to integrate gender into standardization and what’s been done to develop gender responsive standards and the support provided to ISO members to ensure gender remains a focus at the national level.

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WP.6 34^th Session, ToS-GRS, 27 August 2024

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Speaker bio

Lance Thompson joined the United Nations in 2017 as Secretary to the UN Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT). In 2021, he was transferred to become the Secretary to the Working Party on Regulatory Cooperation and Standardization Policies (WP.6). He also holds the responsibilities of Focal Point within the UNECE Trade Subprogramme for gender, for disability inclusion and for disaster risk reduction. 

Lance Thompson has a doctorate in social anthropology from the University of Paris V, La Sorbonne, an MBA specialized in international business where he finished as valedictorian from the ESM-A business school of Paris and a Bachelor’s in French literature from Hofstra University of New York.

In his career prior to the United Nations, he worked in the private sector specialized in customs procedures around the world as well as electronic data exchange standards. He has lived and worked in the United States of America, in France and in Japan.

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Summary of the presentation

The Secretary of WP.6 presented a brief report on responses to the questionnaire from seventeen standards bodies on implementing standards-related GAPs compared to the annex of Recommendation U on Gender-Responsive Standards9 and compared to the ECE 2015 Guide to Drafting a National Trade Facilitation (NTF) Roadmap.10 Statistically, the actual implementations only cover a fraction of the activities suggested in the annex of Recommendation U; these mostly pertain to gender inclusivity in the standards committees, sex-disaggregated data and working collaboratively with other organizations. Very few of the activities reported in actual implementations pertain to developing gender-responsive standards or internal processes to the standards body (the two other key areas of activity suggested in the annex of Recommendation U). Comparing the approach to the NTF Roadmap, he noted that it could be worthwhile to have a vision statement which summarizes the objectives and expected benefits which could help to motivate those concerned. He further suggested that GAPs might take the approach of existing ECE tools (e.g. the NTF Roadmap) to formulate activities in a quantifiable form (using figures) with timelines. Overall, he stressed that all actions which work towards gender equality are positive and that the respondents of the questionnaire should be congratulated for their work in this regard.

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WP.6 34^th Session, ToS-GRS, 27 August 2024

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Speaker bio

Michelle is the Chair of the Team of Specialists on Gender-Responsive Standards within UNECE Working Party 6. She is also the Manager, Research at the Standards Council of Canada (SCC).  At SCC, she is responsible for leading research to demonstrate the economic and social value of standardization and she co-leads the gender strategy.

In addition, Michelle is a co--convenor of the ISO/IEC Joint Strategic Advisory Group on Gender-Responsive Standards and IEC’s Diversity Advisory Committee.

She authored the reports, When One Size Does Not Protect All: Understanding Why Gender Matters for Standardization and Not Enough of a Good Thing: Understanding the Relationship Between the Gender Composition of Technical Committees and Performance. Michelle has a PhD in Experimental Psychology from McGill University.

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Summary of the presentation

The Chair of the Team of Specialists on Gender-Responsive Standards (ToS-GRS) reported on the second annual meeting of the ToS-GRS which took place during the third WP.6 Forum on 3 and 4 April 2024 as contained in the group’s report (ECE/CTCS/WP.6/2024/6). Ms. Michelle Parkouda (Canada) was appointed Chair; Ms. Lucy Salt (New Zealand) and Ms. Stephanie Eynon (United Kingdom) were appointed ViceChair.

As per the WP.6 programme of work (ECE/CTCS/WP.6/2023/14, paragraph 16e), the annual meeting, as well as some of the working meetings, featured information-sharing best practices and returns on experience6 with examples from Albania, Australia, Benin, Cameroon, Canada, Georgia, Italy and Spain. The working meetings featured invited guests on gender bias in finance and on anthropometrics in European harmonized standards (from the European Commission Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW)).

The first annual meeting also featured a conference on gender considerations for green and digital transformations.7 The ToS-GRS also hosted a conference which underlined the importance to ensure that gender remains at the forefront of the debate in transversal topics such as standards and circular economy.

She finally underlined the importance of capacity building on developing standards-related gender action plan (GAP) which was the focus of the remaining presentation time of the ToS-GRS to the thirty-fourth session.

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WP.6, ToS-GRS, 11 September 2024

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Speaker bio

Leonhard den Hertog works as a Policy Officer at the European Commission. Within the Directorate-General on Justice and Consumers he works on Gender Equality, particularly on the topic of gender based online violence as well as on the gender balance on company boards. 

Before joining the European Commission, he worked as a Policy Advisor at the European Parliament in the areas of equality, democracy, rule of law and fundamental rights, as well as on migration and asylum policies. Previously, he worked as a Research Fellow at a Brussels-based think tank (Centre for European Policy Studies) on EU Justice and Home Affairs Policies. 

Leonhard obtained a Master of Laws from Utrecht University with a specialisation in EU law. He also obtained a joint PhD degree from the Universities of Cologne and Edinburgh, focusing on EU law and policies on the Rule of Law, migration, and external relations.

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Summary of the presentation

Mr. Den Hertog presented the European Commission Gender Equality strategy which has multiple dimensions including free from violence and stereotypes; thriving in a gender-equal economy; and, leading equally throughout society. He concentrated specifically on the gender balance on company boards directive. Current data shows that the majority of Member States in the European Union are not achieving a gender balance; the 27 Member-State-average is 33,8 per cent and some lower than ten per cent. This directive was proposed by the Commission in 2012 and was negotiated over ten years; it should be transposed into national legislation by December 2024 with deadlines for companies to reach targets by 2026. The main principles include targets that companies should achieve; these are similar to quotas, but there are no sanctions in case they are not achieved. If the target of 40 per cent non-executive board representativity and 33 per cent for all directors are not met within large listed companies, there is a requirement to adjust the processes for selecting candidates as well as robust transparency reporting that will be necessary. The burden of proof will be on company to demonstrate that the Directive is not breached (instead of on the candidate who was not appointed/elected). Companies will need to report to the competent Member State authority on an annual basis. There does exist a suspension clause which allows Member States to continue applying their national measures which are equally effective.

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These tables are the statistical supplement to the 82nd session of the UNECE Committee on Forests and the Forest Industry about the current and next year's forest products markets.

The tables show detailed forest products production and trade forecasts by country for 2024 and 2025. The tables are generated based on submissions by member States from Europe, North America and Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia. The tables presented cover roundwood (logs, pulpwood and fuel wood), sawn wood (coniferous and non-coniferous), wood-based panels (plywood, particle board, OSB and fiberboard), pulp, paper and wood pellets. The Committee collects data on over 30 individual products for many countries in the UNECE region. 

Programme of fourth seminar on assessments of the environmental damage resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine: Data Management for Action on the Green Recovery of Ukraine, held on 5 December 2024

Accounting technique accompanies the business background for more than five centuries when Luca Pacioli, a Venetian monk, invented the modern rules in 1494.
From then onward, a few changes occurred in the very basic practice of debit-credit entries. On the contrary, many happened in the environment of bookkeeping and
audit trail in particular from the voucher toward accounts and back from accounts to the document that makes evidence of the entry.
Much more than ever before, the last ten years (the Internet Years) did hit the businesses of both accountant and auditor. EDI first, internet and ebXML now nurture a drastic shift still to achieve in accounting entries collection, accounting books assembly and financial reporting. The deep changes still to achieve with electronic business evolving maturity opens speculations on the revisited relationship of the enterprise’s operational activities with accounting process. In many respects it is obvious that in the course of its daily duty accounting will have to “deliver more for less effort” as well as other enterprise’s departments.

The project ‘Product Traceability Data Exchange’ is the follow up of the project on Animal Traceability Data Exchange (v1.0 ODP5).
At the first stage, we have focused on the movements of animals or groups of animals from one location to another and in this second stage we will focus on the movements of animal and plant products.
Originally the intention was to elaborate two BRSes, one for traceability of plant products and one for animal products. During the process it became clear that the information elements and the data structure were almost exactly similar. In order not to create a duplication of ABIES and ASBIES in the Core Component Library it was decided to develop one standard for traceability of animal and plant products.
The present document describes traceability processes for animal products (all species) and plant products during processing and transport within a country or across borders.
The business case supported by these processes is:
- All the business parties involved in the chain record T&T (track and trace) information on animal and plant products in a Traceability system
- A T&T requesting party (business, consumer or government) has a question about an animal or plant product, processing step, transport, location or responsible party and requires an immediate answer.
- The T&T system retrieves the required information and sends it to the requesting party
Traceability has been most commonly defined as “the ability to trace the history, application or location of an object” in a supply chain (ISO, 2015).
GS1, Global Standards defines traceability as “the ability to track forward the movement through specified stage(s) of the extended supply chain and trace backward this history, application or location of that which is under consideration (Ryu, 2012).

Farmers must be able to produce reliable records about input and techniques used on crops (type of input, rate and date of application), and on livestock conditions (like the nature of feed, the quantity of feed and the use of drugs).

Demand for traceability implies that farmers are able to register data in the same manner despite the variety of software used for management purposes or the way in which products are sold.

The objectives of this document

• Harmonization of the definitions of the technical data in order:
  • to speak the same language
  • to be able to exchange information between heterogeneous Information Systems
• Development of consensual data dictionaries which could to be used as a basis for all the steps of traceability
• Installation of a standardized Crop Data Sheet message to facilitate the transmission of information since the field for all the vegetables cultures

DAPLOS is an EDIFACT message present in the UN/CEFACT Directory D.05B.

DAPLOS message describes the data crop sheet exchanged between farmers and their partners.

Majority of the farms are Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) and then, the use of ebXML format should be the best way to increase the electronic data interchange.

The purpose of this document is to define the crop data sheet processes for all vegetables dies, using the UN/CEFACT Modeling Methodology (UMM) approach and Unified Modeling Language to describe and detail the business processes and transactions involved.

The structure of this document is based on the structure of the UN/CEFACT Requirements Specification Mapping (RSM) document reference CEFACT/ICG/006.

Farmers must be able to produce reliable records about input and techniques used on crops (type of input, rate and date of application), and on livestock conditions (like the nature of feed, the quantity of feed and the use of drugs). Demand for traceability implies that farmers are able to register data in the same manner despite the variety of software used for management purposes or the way in which products are sold. The objectives of this document • Harmonization of the definitions of the technical data in order: - to speak the same language - to be able to exchange information between heterogeneous Information Systems • Development of consensual data dictionaries which could to be used as a basis for all the steps of traceability • Installation of a standardized Crop Data Sheet message to facilitate the transmission of information since the field for all the vegetables cultures DAPLOS is an EDIFACT message present in the UN/CEFACT Directory D.05B. DAPLOS message describes the data crop sheet exchanged between farmers and their partners. Majority of the farms are Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) and then, the use of ebXML format should be the best way to increase the electronic data interchange. The purpose of this document is to define the crop data sheet processes for all vegetables dies, using the UN/CEFACT Modeling Methodology (UMM) approach and Unified Modeling Language to describe and detail the business processes and transactions involved. The structure of this document is based on the structure of the UN/CEFACT Business Requirements Specification (BRS) document reference CEFACT/ICG/005. 

The objective of this project is to standardize the Business Processes, the Business Transactions and the Information Entities of the technical description and information of the laboratory observations on agricultural samples. The Laboratory Analysis Request message is send by the trade party to the laboratory, requesting the laboratory to perform observations on a sample. The Laboratory Observation Report is a message send by the laboratory to the concerned parties who are eligible to receive the results of the observations on the sample, performed by the laboratory. The observations are done on samples water, soil, agricultural commodities, plant products, animal product and or samples taken from live animals. It includes a broad usage ranging from soil, fertilizer, crop products, animal feed, and health status and diagnostic on live animals. These results are used to obtain information of the quality of soil, water, crop products, animal products, or health information about plants or animals. Only three types of parties are involved, the laboratory, the requesting party and the receiving parties.

The e-Labs analysis request is a message send by the party ordering one or more analyzes on the sample to be performed by the laboratory. The e-Labs observation report is a message send by the laboratory to the concerned parties who are eligible to receive the results of the observations on the sample, performed by the laboratory. The observations are done on samples water, soil, agricultural commodities, plant products, animal products and or samples taken from live animals. It includes a broad usage ranging from soil, fertilizer, crop products, animal feed, and health status and diagnostic on live animals. These results are used to obtain information of the quality of soil, water, crop products, animal products, or health information about plants or animals.
Only three types of parties are involved, the laboratory, the requesting and receiving parties.

The objective of this project is to standardize the Business Processes, the Business Transactions and the Information Entities of the technical description and information of the bovine livestock farming. The cattle registration information exchange process is used between cattle registration offices and with EU authorities, in case of the international movement of bovine animals. The electronic animal passport is used by inspectors of authorities to identify and verify individual animals. The electronic animal passport is a special type of an e-Certificate. The exchanged information is composed out of the core information about the individual animal,  its identity and identification characteristics, and vetenarian health information, together with the records  of the locations and periods  the animal has been kept, or has been transported.

The objective of this document is to standardize the Business Processes, the Business Transactions and the Information Entities of the technical description and information of the bovine livestock farming. The Business Process is the detailed description of the way partners intend to play their respective role, establish business relationship and share responsibilities to interact efficiently with the support of their respective information system. The business documents are composed of Business Information Entities (BIE), which when available, are taken from the library of reusable business information entities and when not found, are proposed as new Business Information Entities. The contents of the business documents and the Business Information Entities are presented using class diagrams. 

The project ‘Animal Traceability Data Exchange’ has a very broad scope. In this project we will start sub projects dedicated to a manageable scope.  At the first stage, we will focus on the movements of animals or groups of animals from one location to another and in a second stage we will focus on the movements of animal products. The present document describes traceability processes for live animals, groups of animals and fish during transport within a country or across borders. The species concerned are: porcine, ovine, caprine, bovine, equine, poultry  and fish. The business case supported by these processes is: - All the business parties involved in the chain record T&T (track and trace) information on animals and animal movements in a Traceability system - - A T&T requesting party (business or government) has a question about an animal, group of animals, transport, location or responsible party and requires an immediate answer. The T&T system retrieves the required information and sends it to the requesting party The term “animal” designates the individual animal (e.g. cow) but also the group of animals (e.g. poultry, pigs, fish.). For the purpose of this document, the definition of traceability is: ‘Traceability is retrieving information about the origin and history of an animal, a group of animals or animal products.’ 

Programme of Work: Planned result: A discussion with ToS-ESG experts, to guide UN-level co-operation to scale-up traceability and transparency for sustainable value chains.

Moderator: Christian Hudson, Chair, Team of Specialists on Environment, Social and Governance (ToS-ESG)

UN/CCL 24A -  Released on 3 December 2024

Meat report 2024 by Bucky Gwartney

Seed Potatoes report 2024 by Hanna Kortemaa

DDP report 2024 by Dorian LaFond

FFV report 2024 by Cyril Julius

Supporting UNECE member States in the development and implementation of the United Nations Framework Classification for Resources (UNFC) and the United Nations Resource Management System (UNRMS)
Period of Review:
2020 - 2023
Date of Evaluation Report:
15/07/2024

Fisheries control and management is largely based upon the collection, storage, exchange… of large sets of data between the parties involved. Data sets are very diverse, ranging from tiny reports on the whereabouts of individual fishing vessels to aggregated reports of monthly (yearly) catches of the complete fleet of a country. This data is collected for different purposes. Sometimes it is used to closely monitor the behaviour of a single vessel and in other cases it serves scientific purposes in preparation of scientific advice for establishing TAC for a future fishing season. The requirements for data availability have historically grown and changed. The consequence is that for each business need individual data sets have been defined, and specific technical solutions have been developed. Today, a large patchwork of (partial) data management solutions is in place. This diversity hinders data exchange, and often delivers questionable quality at high operating cost. As part of the solution for this problem, the FLUX (Fisheries Language for Universal eXchange) project aims at defining a universal and efficient data exchange “language” compatible with (but not limited by) regulations and international requirements. 

This Briefing Note provides an insight into how UN/CEFACT’s work to develop a standard for the exchange of fishery messages for the sustainable management of fisheries (FLUX) contributes to Sustainable Development Goal 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.