Documents

The goal of this white paper is to identify ways to address gender inequality in trade facilitation. In line with the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) strategy, this paper seeks to contribute to the achievement of United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG5): to reduce gender inequalities and empower all women and girls. Specifically, UN/CEFACT is committed to facilitating trade and attaining gender equality within the scope of its activities, which are the simplification, standardization and harmonization of procedures and associated information related to the movement of goods from seller to buyer, and related payments.

This paper is part of UN/CEFACT’s gender mainstreaming efforts which look to create deliverables that provide support for policy development, data creation and research, standards, recommendations, advocacy and dialogue, resource allocation, planning, implementation, and monitoring of programs aimed at eliminating gender disparities in trade facilitation. These efforts should enable women to have a greater engagement in international trade, promote their economic empowerment and ensure that trade procedures are equally accessible for women in terms of time and costs.

Data provides evidence that there is a need to support women in trade. Implementation of the World Trade Organization’s Trade Facilitation Agreement (WTO TFA) offers great opportunities to countries for improving their competitiveness. At the same time, gender disparities reduce the gains that can be achieved in terms of international trade opportunities, countries’ competitiveness, and economic growth. Organizations such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Trade Centre (ITC), UN Women and The World Bank are shedding light on the fact that gender equality matters as an instrument for economic development through international trade activities.

Specifically, in the context of UN/CEFACT activities, gender discrimination in trade facilitation has multiple dimensions. Inequalities exist in many different areas, in multiple sectors and affect a myriad of fields of knowledge. This prevents the integration of women into international trade. It is widely recognized that gender inequities exist in three main areas:
women in the economy (as entrepreneurs and participants in the labour force), women as policymakers and women as decision makers. There are also distinct barriers for women by sector and in the professions involved in trade and reflected in UN/CEFACT’s Buy-Ship-Pay model. These include professions such as marine and air pilots, truck drivers, crane operators, vessel traffic services operatives, stevedores, harbour masters, traders, port managers and customs agents. Gender inequities are also ingrained in multidisciplinary areas, which involve the integration of many fields of knowledge. The reduction of gender inequalities requires the cooperative contribution of lawyers, economists, sociologists, finance experts, statisticians, engineers, designers, doctors, anthropologists and psychologists among others.

Using a holistic approach, this white paper has two goals: to reduce gender inequalities in trade procedures and, more importantly, to facilitate trade for women. To this end, the scope is not merely the description of best practices for women in trade facilitation. Essentially, it provides guidance for the implementation of gender mainstreaming which includes tools, policies and implementation strategies. This paper also recognizes the need for active engagement from politicians, managers, recruiters, money lenders, economic advisors, teachers and trainers, and the whole of society to achieve these goals.

The paper goes through the challenges MSMEs face in international trade and explains how eServices platforms can provide solutions for transport, finance, border clearance and other in support of MSMEs.

In most economies, the Micro-, Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSME) sector is the largest business sector with 95 percent of the business entities being MSMEs 1 and generating many employment opportunities. The definition of MSMEs varies across countries and organizations. The most commonly used factors in defining a MSME are the number of employees, followed by turnover and assets. One commonly used definition defines MSME as an enterprise employing up to 249 persons. In developing countries, the threshold will be lower, between 50 to 100 employees. In developed countries, 78 percent of exporters are MSMEs.

However, these MSMEs only account for 34 percent of the exports, suggesting that there is a concentration of exports among a few large business enterprises. Most of the time, big conglomerates are more productive 1 as they benefit from economies of scale (e.g. cost per unit decreases with an increased production). Such concentration is more significant in developing countries where direct exports only account for 7.6 percent of the total sales of MSMEs. One of the deterring factors is cost. Here, it is important to distinguish between per-unit costs and fixed trading costs. Per-unit costs include freight carrier costs, tariffs, and any costs that
are subject to the amount of traded goods and distance. Fixed trading costs are costs which do not vary with export volume, such as costs for regulatory compliance, for building sales network, for brand advertising, for translation, etc. Fixed trading costs limit the ability of an enterprise to export its products. To reduce fixed trading costs, international standards and recommendations play a crucial role by providing guidelines to overcome these red-tape barriers.

This White Paper is part of the UN/CEFACT Transport and Logistics Smart Container Project. The aim of this White Paper is to have a common understanding of Smart Container solutions. The stakeholder(s) of the Smart Container data are identified along with a description of the use cases to explain the potential usage for those data elements of interest. This enables the stakeholders of the logistic chain to reap the maximum benefits from the Smart Container solutions while enabling them to share data and associated costs. This increases their collaboration and resulting efficiency.

The supply chain requirements have changed over the years. Nowadays, supply chain stakeholders place more importance on the need for improved visibility to identify inbound flow of goods to satisfy higher demands and react to the unexpected. Smart devices unlock the potential to provide accurate real-time data as they are permanently fixed to the transport equipment, provide coverage for the whole journey and are not restricted to reaching physical locations to report events.

Transportation demand is forecasted to triple by 20501. Keeping track of that intensification of transportation is imperative for all supply chain stakeholders. Motivated by factors such as operational efficiency standards, competitive pressures, heightened customer expectations and governmental regulations, both public and private organizations are searching for mechanisms to reduce risks by gaining data-driven visibility into the physical location, condition, and context of their products and assets2. Universal track and trace capabilities will enable digital ecosystems to flourish, overcoming current logistics inefficiencies. Companies will have full visibility and sovereignty3 over their supply chains as part of fully interconnected logistics networks so that transport assets and resources are used for optimum efficiency. Unfortunately, today transport and logistics do not offer these universal track and trace capabilities.

The United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) defined a Cross-Industry Supply Chain Track and Trace Project in 2018, which was initiated in early 2020. The project’s primary focus is on tracking and tracing during transportation covering the movement of trade deliveries (shipments) from seller to buyer via one or moretransport contracts (consignments) and one or more transport modes.

The UN/CEFACT Blockchain White Paper Project oversaw the preparation of two White Papers. The first, which looks at Blockchains’ impact on the technical standards work of UN/CEFACT, has been published (ECE/TRADE/C/CEFACT/2019/8). This is an update of the second White Paper, which looks at how Blockchain technology could be used to facilitate trade and related business processes. In this updated version, you find potential uses of Blockchain in different sectors in the second part of the paper. The Briefing Note on how Blockchain technology could be used to support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (ECE/TRADE/C/CEFACT/2018/25) is being updated to include further examples. This work is also accompanied by a repository of case studies on Blockchain.

As described further below, the term “Blockchain” is being used throughout this document, although it could be interchanged with the term Distributed Ledger Technology. There are distributed ledger technologies that are not Blockchains, but at the time of publication, they are even newer and less tested than Blockchain technologies, so they are not discussed here. At the same time, the security and legal issues described in chapter 2, almost all of the implementation issues discussed in chapter 3 and the uses for Blockchain discussed beginning with Chapter 4 apply generally to Digital Ledger Technology and not only to Blockchains

IoT is a network that connects uniquely identifiable “things” or devices to the Internet. These devices have sensing capabilities and can, potentially, be programmed. Through the exploitation of their
unique identification and sensing capabilities, information about these devices can be collected and the state of these devices can be changed.
Some of the key features of an IoT ecosystem include
• Possibilities for interconnections with and between devices
• Devices that are uniquely identifiable
• Sensing capability
• Embedded intelligence
• Communication capability
• Programmability
IoT ecosystems have the potential to make novel applications possible that facilitate cross border paperless trade through the use of connected devices that sense, collect, process, share and act on
data. Data such as temperature, humidity, location can be collected from IoT devices and can be used to power a number of applications ranging from the ability to ensure freshness of produce across a
supply chain, to asset location tracking, to detecting equipment failure in logistics and transportation.

IoT devices also have the ability to capture and record data in real time and in a continuous manner and to associate this data with unique IDs. Therefore, they can be used to trace the origin of data
from basic sensor readings even as this data is used by software applications to create complex derived information. This real time data can be fed into decision systems that are part of an international
supply chain for further action and automation as documented by the UN/CEFACT Smart container project.

IoT creates interesting opportunities for trade facilitation by providing the ability to create and exchange cross border electronic information without human interference, and thus in a more secure, effective, and economical manner. IoT systems can also be designed to ensure the integrity of data about the physical condition of things such as packaging, vehicles, and containers. In combination with other emerging technologies such as Blockchain, 5G, API’s and Cloud platforms,

IoT could have a huge impact the drive toward significant automation of international supply chains and the facilitation of cross border paperless trade. Given the huge interest in IoT technology, there are already many projects around the global trying to revolutionize supply chains with operational efficiencies created by IoT through better asset tracking, inventory management and the predictive maintenance of equipment. An interesting example of this is documented in the Smart Containers project of UN/CEFACT which looks at how smart containers that are standardized seagoing containers fitted with sensors are enabling door-to-door tracking and monitoring. Smart Containers have the potential to drive end-to-end visibility and transparency throughout the entire supply chain.

Given the widespread use of IoT within a wide range of varying systems with different properties and support for communication channels, this paper seeks to highlight the role of standards and how UN/CEFACT can play a role in terms of developing or extending existing technical specifications to maximize this technology’s value to UN/CEFACT’s constituency.

This paper’s therefore focuses on the role UN/CEFACT standards can play in defining data and process flow between IoT devices operated by various parties as part of an international supply chain and how
this data can be integrated into existing supply chain automation processes in an interoperable manner

Over the last few years, the payments landscape has massively changed. The use of advanced technologies by traditional and new financial services providers, including fintech, Big Tech and  challenger banks, have increased the level of competition and the overall degree of innovation. In the open finance scenario, public administration, corporate and retail customers are enabled to choose among a variety of products, that go beyond traditional banking functionalities.

The goal of the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) Finance and Payment Domain is to investigate the economic paradigms of open banking and open finance in order to understand how they can facilitate trade worldwide.

Far from being a comprehensive analysis of the complex and innovative open finance landscape, this document aims to pave the way for further studies on this topic, to be carried out by UN/CEFACT and
other international organizations.

This white paper evaluates practices and solutions to strengthen private sector participation in National Trade Facilitation Bodies (NTFBs), to make them more effective and to strengthen the impact of NTFBs on trade facilitation reforms. Public-private dialogue is vital for trade facilitation as it ensures a service-centered approach and collaboration. NTFBs should therefore strive to get meaningful contribution and commitment from relevant private stakeholders.

This paper explores new possibilities that arise when framing the problem in terms of access to (rather than exchange of) conformity attestations. It also proposes the use of technology to link conformity attestations to physical product supply as a way to address existing problems. The paper also points to ways in which such framing may provide a natural structure for the future transition to fully digitalised systems, while noting that detailed exploration of such is outside the scope of this paper.

UN/CEFACT White Paper on Single Window Assessment Methodology.

This white paper provides a practical tool for assessing and improving the implementation of Single Window mechanism, which is crucial for trade facilitation and reducing trade transactions costs. This methodology provides guidance and a structured approach for assessing the maturity level of a Single Window based on international recommendations and standards.

How can we proactively shape the future of transport to ensure healthy, sustainable and inclusive mobility for all?

In the ever-evolving landscape of urban development, transport plays a pivotal role in shaping the cities of tomorrow. Member States and stakeholders across the region recognize the need to integrate transport planning with urban development, while prioritizing environmental sustainability and public health, and building resilient and liveable cities for all. To facilitate this essential forward-thinking dialogue, we invite you to participate in the workshop organized in the framework of the Transport, Health and Environment Pan-European Programme (THE PEP).

The workshop will address pressing challenges as well as opportunities for shaping the future of transport to ensure healthy, sustainable, and inclusive mobility. It will include informative presentations and discussions on key topics, such as the significance of walking and cycling as active modes of transport, the impact of urban environments on people's decisions regarding their modes of transport and interactions between walking and public transportation systems. Additionally, new emerging micro-mobility options that have gained popularity in many cities will be discussed. Participants will also have the opportunity to learn about how intersectoral cooperation supports healthier and more sustainable transport and mobility.

This document is intended to share information on early thinking regarding an eighth pan-European environmental assessment. The Committee on Environmental Policy is not being asked to take any decision at this stage.

This informal paper provides information to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) Committee on Environmental Policy about activities of the ECE secretariat, working with partners, to support the assessment of the environmental damage caused by the war in Ukraine. Such assessment is needed to inform possible environmental remediation measures and to support a green recover and reconstruction in Ukraine.

The Committee might wish to take note of this information.