The International Forum on Trade Facilitation, held in Geneva, from 29 to 30 May 2002, recommended that Governments should consider integrated and targeted sub-regional, regional and international approaches to broadening the scope and enhancing the benefits and cohesion of customs, trade and transport facilitation projects. The Forum also recommended that the United Nations agencies including the Regional Commissions should play a strong role in supporting and developing technical cooperation initiatives for the implementation of trade facilitation measures and instruments, in cooperation with other relevant international organisations. In addition, it emphasised that the Regional Commissions develop, in collaboration with relevant UN agencies, a common project on capacity building for trade facilitation that would address a set of components of an incremental approach, making the best use of the existing infrastructure. The components would be trade facilitation policy and implementation issues; technical assistance to governments; capacity building for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in electronic business; and support to countries, sub-regions and regions formulating negotiating objectives and strategies on trade facilitation. In response to these recommendations, the Regional Commissions (ECLAC, ECA, ECE, ESCWA and ESCAP) agreed to implement this joint project.

The objective of the joint project is to strengthen both the international competitiveness as well as the negotiating capacity of developing countries by sharing knowledge on problems and best practices in the various countries and regions on trade promotion and diversification; a greater participation of SMEs in global supply networks; designing and implementing trade facilitation policies at national and regional levels; and a greater use of knowledge management and information and communication technologies in supply chain management.

Member countries of the five Regional Commissions of the United Nations.

• UNECE/UNESCAP Workshop on United Nations electronic Documents (UNeDocs) for Single Window Facilities in Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok, Thailand, 10-14 December 2007 (UNECE, UNESCAP)
• High-Level Expert Meeting on Reducing Poverty by Promoting Industrial Development through Trade Facilitation, Vientiane, Lao PDR, 6-7 December 2007
• SPECA-ASEAN Workshop on UNeDocs – as a step towards electronic trade documentation, Bangkok, Thailand, 23-24 April 2007
• Seminar on “Trade Facilitation for SPECA countries”, Dushanbe, Tajikistan, 12-13 December 2006 (UNESCAP)
• International Conference on Trade Facilitation, Moscow, Russian Federation, 16-17 October 2006 (UNECE, EurAsEC and UNESCAP)
• Capacity building workshop on Trade Facilitation Implementation for Asia and the Pacific, Malaysia, 17-18 March 2005 (UNESCAP)

• UN Trade Facilitation Toolkit and Forms Repository
  
  The UN Forms Repository was jointly developed under this project by UNECE and UNESCAP. It provides a platform for Governments and traders to simplify their documentary requirements and develop consistent national sets of trade forms that are aligned to international standards.