Donald Lewis, an associate member of Brooke Chambers, was invited to speak at the ‘Forum on Trade Digitalization for Sustainable Regional Integration’.
The Forum sought to bring the experience and expertise from both the public and private sector to discuss how cross border paperless data exchange will work, legal recognition of electronic data and documents and identifying likely challenges. The initiative has been led by the Asia Pacific countries and the region developed the first treaty in 2016 on the digitalization of trade procedures – the UN Framework Agreement on Cross-Border Paperless Trade in Asia and the Pacific.
EIF (WTO) – UNESCAP National Single Window and paperless trade project Countries: Bangladesh, Nepal, Cambodia, and Timor-Leste
Donald Lewis is currently engaged as a legal consultant for a major EIF (WTO) – UNESCAP National Single Window and paperless trade project involving four LDCs (less developed countries): Bangladesh, Nepal, Cambodia, and Timor-Leste.
The project includes legal and technical e-readiness assessments for the four countries, gauging their readiness to engage in cross-border paperless trade (i.e. trade facilitation) and e-commerce. As part of the assessments, Donald was part of the team to missions in Nepal and Bangladesh (2-10 April 2019) and Timor-Leste and Cambodia (3-14 June 2019)
The Trade, Investment and Innovation Division (TIID) of UNESCAP is implementing a project entitled “Facilitating Cross-Border Paperless Trade in Least Developed Countries for Regional Integration and Sustainable Development (Phase I).” The project intends to contribute to building capacity of selected UNESCAP member states in implementing the UN Framework Agreement on Facilitation of Cross-border Paperless Trade in Asia and the Pacific as well as to the achievement of certain SDGs.
He has also been engaged for the national consultations in Bangladesh and Nepal (to be held from 21-26 July 2019) as well as Timor-Leste and Cambodia (to be held in September 2019).
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