UNESCAP-ICC-WCO-ADB Webinar on How Can Paperless Trade Contribute to Climate Goals?

Yann Duval is currently Chief of Trade Policy and Facilitation Section at UN-ESCAP, the regional branch of the United Nations Secretariat for Asia and the Pacific. Over the past 20 years, Dr. Duval has conducted research and delivered technical assistance and advisory services on trade policy and facilitation throughout Asia and the Pacific, including on the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement. He spearheaded the development of the Asia-Pacific Research and Training Network on Trade (ARTNeT), as well as, interalia, the creation of the ESCAP-World Bank Trade Cost Database, the UN Global Survey on Trade Facilitation and Paperless Trade Implementation and the online Trade Intelligence and Negotiation Adviser (TINA).

Dr. Duval was also instrumental in the development of the United Nations Network of Experts for Paperless Trade and Transport in Asia and the Pacific (UNNExT) and the negotiation of a new intergovernmental Framework Agreement on Facilitation of Cross-Border Paperless Trade in Asia and the Pacific, a UN treaty entered into force in February 2021.

Prior to joining the UN, he held faculty positions at the Asian Institute of Technology and Washington State University, USA.

Mr. O’Hearn serves as the Deputy Director of the Procedures and Facilitation Sub-Directorate within the Compliance and Facilitation Directorate at the World Customs Organization (WCO) where he directs the development, implementation and maintenance of international treaties, conventions, standards, guidelines and other trade facilitation tools. He oversees a large staff and the preparation and execution of more than 20 Member driven committees, sub-committees and working groups, which includes the preparation of meeting agendas, documents and reports. Mr. O’Hearn also provides counsel to the Director, Deputy Secretary General and Secretary General on matters relating to the Sub-Directorate.

From July 2013 to November 2019, Mr. O’Hearn served as both the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Attaché and Department of Homeland Security Attaché in Tokyo, Japan. In these positions, he managed a broad range Homeland Security, Customs and Immigration issues. He was also responsible for providing advice and counsel to U.S. Ambassadors to Japan Caroline Kennedy and William Hagerty, as well as numerous Japanese lawmakers, on Homeland Security issues.

Mr. O’Hearn started his public service career with the U.S. Customs Service in 1995 as an Import Specialist at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

Mr. Kijin Kim is Economist in the Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department, Asian Development Bank. Since he joined the ADB in 2017, he has been working on trade, trade facilitation, and trade finance within the context of regional cooperation and integration (RCI). He contributed to ADB’s publications on these areas including the Asian Economic Integration Report, Trade Finance Gaps, Growth, and Jobs Survey, and Asia-Pacific Trade Facilitation Report.

Before joining the ADB, he was a research fellow of the Regional Economics Applications Laboratory at the University of Illinois since 2012. From 2004 to 2010, he worked as Economist at the Bank of Korea. He earned his PhD in economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2016, focusing on research within the fields of regional economics and applied econometrics, centered on the role of labor markets, the effects of heterogeneity in consumption spending and labor market participation on regional economies.

Mr Christian Lembke, as a Technical Attaché under the WCO Compliance and Facilitation Directorate since June 2020, is mainly involved in the area of the WCO Data Model, the online platform RAM-MAP SWIM, Advance Passenger Information as well as the Globally Networked Customs concept.

He has previously worked as a customs officer at Frankfurt am Main Airport (Germany) in the field of risk assessment for air cargo shipments since 2005. He has been involved in a risk assessment project in an EU working group at the international level.

Ian Watt is the Founder & CEO NeXTRADE™ www.nextrade.world

The purpose of NeXTRADE is to contribute to the digitalisation and transformation of global supply chains enabled by international standards for trade facilitation and Web3 technologies

Ian holds INTERNATIONAL & NATIONAL RECOGNITION since 1996 as a noteworthy leader in trade facilitation standards development and trade digitalisation. Ian has invested in Beta trade digitalisation projects and conducted Proof of Concept pilot projects recognised by UNECE and the Asian Development Bank https://www.adb.org/publications/paper-free-trade-smallholder-pilot-study-coffee-association-lao-pdr

Advisor and repesentative: Bureau Vice Chair: UNECE UN/CEFACT: https://unece.org/trade/uncefact

• ISO JWG8 TC154 https://www.isotc154.org/groups/jwg8
• ICC DSI IAB: https://iccwbo.org/media-wall/news-speeches/icc-announces-formation-of-new-industry-advisory-board-iab-to-support-the-digital-standards-initiative/
• National GS1 Traceability Advisory Group: https://www.gs1au.org/ngtag
• National Traceability Summit: https://www.agriculture.gov.au/biosecurity-trade/market-access-trade/traceability-project/summit-2022

INTERNATIONAL & NATIONAL (Pro bono) roles held:

• 2016 – Current: Vice Chair UN/CEFACT Bureau - Program Development Areas | Sustainable International Supply Chain & Procurement | Agriculture, Fisheries & Agrifood | Travel & Tourism
• 2009-2013: International speaker Asia-Pacific Trade Facilitation Forums (APTTF) since inception (2009) as organised by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) https://www.unescap.org/ https://www.unescap.org/events/2022/asia-pacific-trade-facilitation-forum-2022
• 2009: Founding member (1 of 5) of the United Nations “Network of Experts in Trade Facilitation” (UNNExT) https://unnext.unescap.org https://tfig.unece.org/
• 2009-2010: Chair Australia & Taiwan ICT Cluster, Track & Trace (RFID)
• 2005–2008: Head of Delegation for Australia to UNECE UN/CEFACT
• 2005–2008: Head of Delegation Australia Asia Pacific Council for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (AFACT)
• 2005–2008: Chairperson of the UN/CEFACT business process analysis working group developing the International Supply Chain Processes Reference Model | Founding Chair UN/CEFACT Modellers Reference PoC Initiative
• 2005–2008: Member CITeC: Communications IT and eCommerce Standards Sector Board (Standards Australia)
• 2005–2007: Chairperson IT-033 e-Business Architecture and Data Exchange. (Standards Australia)
• 2005-2006: Chairperson IT-034 Automatic Identification and Data Capture Techniques (Standards Australia)
• 2005-2007: Chairperson and founding director Radio Frequency Identification Association of Australia (RFIDAA)

Panelists

Valentina Ferraro joined the World Customs Organization (WCO) in January 2019 as a Technical Attaché in the Procedures and Facilitation Sub-Directorate.  She is lead official in the fields of Performance measurement and Green Customs and co-responsible in other areas such as Single Window, Business continuity and the SAFE Framework of Standards to Secure and Facilitate Global Trade.

Prior to joining the WCO, she held executive positions In the Italian Customs and Monopoly Agency, as a Director of the coordination office for personnel and organization affairs, as well as acting Director of the office for procedures and controls in the sector of excise duties of the Regional Directorate for Sicily.

PhD in Public management and governance, she previously held research and teaching positions at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” and worked as a consultant at the national and international level for public administrations, such as the National Authority for Public administration Evaluation, Transparency and Integrity (now National Anticorruption Authority), the Italian research center for labour, economic and development, and the UNESCO World Heritage Centre.

WORK EXPERIENCE

Aug. 2021 – date

Senior Manager Sustainability          DHL Express, Global Head Office, Bonn / Germany

• Coordinating the global roll-out of the corporate Sustainability Roadmap
• Facilitation of Sustainability workshops with country management teams
• Organization of & participation in steering committees / sustainability webinars with global management team members
• Participation as subject matter expert in customer meetings

Sep. 2020 – June 2021

Project coordinator                           University of Basel, Medical Faculty, Basel / Switzerland

• Organization & coordination of all digital lectures & professors  
• Coordination of a software transition from beAxi to MEASURED for the MC exams
• Development of a concept to integrate Sustainability into the medical curriculum

Nov. 2019 – March 2020

General Manager of the Project "The Green Circle Experience"   Edventure Costa Rica S.A. & Nomad America Ltd, San José / Costa Rica

• Acquisition of new project partners, Marketing, Sales
• Creation & maintenance of the website and representation of the project in social media channels
• Internal, external communication

Dec. 2018 - July 2019

Academic intern (70% in the project of economic impacts of an extensive child-care system in Switzerland, 30% in BAK Business Consulting)        BAK Economics AG, Basel / Switzerland

• Research and illustration of economic interdependencies
• Analysis and graphical visualization of research survey results

Sept. 2016 – Aug. 2018

Service management, service staff, and hostess (Kölnmesse, WDR, Kirberg)     Gecko Veranstaltungsservice GmbH, Cologne / Germany

Oct. 2014 – March 2015

Internship in the Strategic Workforce Management team        Deutsche Post DHL Group, Bonn / Germany

EDUCATIONAL PROFILE

Oct. 2015 – Sept. 2018

University of Cologne, Cologne / Germany

• Master of Science in Economics (grade 1.7)
• Master’s thesis in the subject Behavioral Economics
• Topic: Sustainable products, eco-labelling, hypothetical bias
• Title: Hypothetical vs. real choices: Can eco-labels really increase consumers’ willingness-to-pay for sustainable products? (grade 1.0) 

Dec. 2017 – July 2018

Center for Social and Economic Behaviour (C-SEB) University of Cologne, Cologne / Germany

• Research grant for conducting a behavioral economic experiment in the context of the master’s thesis

Oct. 2011 – Sept. 2014

University of Cologne, Colgone / Germany

• Bachelor of Science in Economics
• Subject emphasis: Management, Human Resources, Economic Psychology

June 2010

Theodor-Heuss-Gymnasium, Schopfheim / Germany

• General qualification for university entrance (Abitur)

August – Sept. 2007

Alexander von Humboldt School Lima / Perú

• Student exchange with language course

Ms. Florence Binta Diao-Gueye joined the Secretariat of the International Chamber of Commerce in 2016 and is responsible for ICC’s policy engagement on a range of trade issues – working with the ICC Customs and Trade Commissions to develop distinctive policy positions and insights. She is driving corporate engagement in ICC’s trade and customs work — as well as outreach to the World Customs Organization and the World Trade Organization. Having graduated from universities in Germany and France, Ms Diao-Gueye holds a Master in International Security, African Studies as well as an LL.M. in International Law.

Luca is an MBA graduate with a profile at the intersection of international relations, management consulting and innovation for climate and biodiversity. He has spent the last years in London working at the Boston Consulting Group on supply chain risk and sustainability as part of a global internal procurement transformation project; before that he has worked for an array of international clients on supply chain optimisation and Target Operating Models. His early studies where in Political Sciences, after which he completed traineeships at the confederation of Italian industries in Brussels, in the government affairs department of the main Italian energy firm in Rome and in corporate strategy for a European Commission funded pan European news network in Paris. Luca is passionate about innovation for climate change and biodiversity and contributes as an expert and advisor for start-ups and accelerator programs such as the Clean Tech Open, the Solar Impulse Foundation and WWF.

Luca Brunello joined UNECE in October 2021 to work on the project Enhancing Traceability and Transparency for Sustainable and Circular Value Chains in Garment and Footwear.

Professional Qualification:

• BBA(Hons)Jaffna-Bachelor of Business Administration
• PGDE(NIE)-Post Graduate Diploma in Education
• MCA(Canberra) -Master of Customs Administration
• LLM (Cardiff Metropolitan)

Career history:

Joined Sri Lanka Customs in 1997 as an Assistant Superintendent of Customs. Worked in the following Divisions, Exports, Bonds, Import and Tariff, Preventive, Baggage & Passenger Services, Central Investigation, Port Control and Narcotics Control.

At present attached to Consumer and Environment Protection Unit. I am a Pre-Accredited Technical and Operational Advisor to WCO in IPR. I am the National contact Person for IPR and Environmental Matters at Sri Lanka Customs. Member of Basel Technical Committee, Basel, Stockholm, Rotterdam and Minamata Enforcement Committee and National Stakeholder Committee of Ministry of Environment.

I have experience in Investigation, Prosecution, Trade Facilitation and General Administration. I am also a Customs Resource Person conduct lectures at Human Resource Development Directorate.

Ms. Mahezabin Natasha is an Environmental Engineer with expertise in trade facilitation and environmental impact analysis, renewable energy technologies and project management in South and Southeast Asia, and Africa, underpinned by research and data analysis skills in environment-policy interface. Recently she has worked as a Consultant with UNESCAP to develop a methodology to assess the environmental impact of the export process of the readymade garments sector. She has also conducted research on the seaport-based environmental footprint of trade procedures, and on the development of a guide for climate-smart trade procedures. Earlier, as a Consultant for International Trade Centre (ITC), Geneva, she advised the Applied Research Project Team with a focus on the nexus between trade facilitation reforms and their environmental impact of perishable goods in Uganda. Previously, she worked as a Programme Officer for the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok with Global Environmental Facility (GEF) projects on renewable energy in Southeast Asia; World Health Organization, Geneva on better reporting of health system; and UNHCR, Geneva, as a Researcher, with the WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) Unit.

She holds a Masters in Environmental Engineering from the University of Nottingham, UK and Bachelors in Civil Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET).