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As bodies responsible for the coordination and implementation of trade facilitation reforms, National Trade Facilitation Committees (NTFCs) are involved in several initiatives running in parallel, led by different stakeholders. Thus, NTFCs require means to assess and keep track of these reform-initiatives, resources allocated to their implementation, and their impact.
This session seeks to unveil the different tools available to measure and monitor the implementation of trade facilitation measures at the national level as well as to compare performance at the regional and international levels.
The session will look at providing answers to the following questions:
- How do these tools work?
- How do these initiatives increase accountability of NTFCs members?
- What are the benefits and lessons learned from deploying these tools?
- What is the way forward?
Christopher O’Toole has worked in the trade policy field for twenty-five years. He has been Canada’s co-lead or lead negotiator for various chapters in the CETA, the CPTPP and the CUSMA negotiations. Mr. O’Toole is on his second assignment to Canada’s WTO Mission in Geneva where he is responsible for goods market access issues and is the current Chairperson of the WTO’s Trade Facilitation Committee.
Silvia Sorescu is a Policy Analyst in the Emerging Policy Issues Division of the OECD’s Trade and Agriculture Directorate, which she joined in 2010. Silvia is currently the Project Lead for the Directorate’s trade facilitation work, which includes the OECD Trade Facilitation Indicators covering over 160 economies. Her work is focused on mapping the policy environment for trade facilitation and linking trade facilitation issues to digital trade, global supply chains, and sustainability.
Silvia has as well in-depth country-specific experience, working on agro-food trade and domestic policy issues in economies such as China, Colombia, India, and Indonesia.
Prior to joining the OECD, she was a Research Associate at the World Economy Group, an academic research centre at the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po Paris), working on various trade policy and European Union policy issues.
Since she joined UNCTAD in 2012, Arantzazu Sanchez has significantly contributed to enhancing National Trade Facilitation Committees (NTFCs).
Passionate about innovation and driving change, she had had leading roles in key initiatives like the Empowerment Programme for NTFCs, the UNCTAD Reform Tracker, the UNCTAD Database for NTFCs, and the Trade Facilitation e-Learning Platform, having also a major hand in crafting its curriculum.
Her academic credentials include studies in Political Sciences across Spain and Germany, topped with a Postgraduate Master from the College of Europe in Belgium. A Spanish national, she fluently speaks English, French, German, and Portuguese.
Her prolific output includes a vast array of publications on NTFCs.
Since 2018, Karen has been Trade Facilitation Coordinator and Negotiator at the Vice-Ministry of Economic Integration and Foreign Trade (Ministry of Economic Development of Honduras), Coordinator of the National Trade Facilitation Committee of Honduras (CONFACO) and its Technical Secretariat, with an active role at the national, regional, and multilateral levels.
She holds a degree in Business Administration and an MSc in Strategic Marketing, University Teaching, and Military Didactics.
She has undergone extensive training in areas such as economy, foreign trade, customs, and regional and multilateral trade facilitation with the support of international organizations.
Mr. Yann Duval is Chief of the Trade Policy and Facilitation Section at the United Nations ESCAP. Over the past 20 years, he has conducted research and delivered technical assistance and advisory services on trade and development throughout Asia and the Pacific. Since joining ESCAP, he spearheaded the creation of the ESCAP-World Bank Trade Cost Database, as well as the UN Global Survey on Digital and Sustainable Trade Facilitation. Over the past 10 years, he also led the ESCAP Secretariat team supporting the negotiation of a new UN treaty on the facilitation of cross-border paperless trade in Asia and the Pacific, which entered into force in 2021.
