Put yourself in the shoes of a small business owner or a farmer. You’re doing well for yourself, your crop is good, your domestic trade is strong and you’re well placed to take your business to the international stage – but you have no idea how. What do you know about international trade? Where do you even start to find out about it? When you do find out about it, you find that the procedures are time consuming and complicated and, when factored in to your daily duties of keeping your farm running, just don’t add up to good business.
Many governments cottoned on to this a long time ago. They want to help their small traders and producers to grow their business and help them internationally capitalise on their countries’ natural resources and capabilities. Some governments, like that of the Philippines, have built a single window (SW) – a centralised portal through which large and small-scale traders are able to easily (and electronically) submit all the information they need the necessary export permits and licences that unlock the door to international business.
Before the submission stage, however, they need to get all the information out to the traders – to provide them with the forms, legislation, small print and publications they would then need in order to submit to the single window. This way people like our farmer can make informed decisions about their decision to expand their trade internationally. That’s where a trade information portal (TIP) comes in and that’s where governments can kick off their missions to set up their single window.
So what is it? Well, through a TIP, traders have a single authoritative access point to the information they need to comply with all regulatory obligations for all the government agencies involved in international trade, in accordance with the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO’s) trade facilitation agreement (TFA) article 1 on the publication and availability of information. It helps with cost savings on processes, minimising compliance conflicts and, over time, reduces the overall time and cost of doing business.
Building a foundation
In setting up a trade information portal, many elements need to be raised to a level where they can work equally and effectively with each other and provide leverage for work towards a single window. In terms of governance, work towards the TIP can be helped by national trade facilitation committees (NTFC), which provide umbrella structures for the agencies involved in the information portal to come together under. The best NTFC have inputs from both public and private sectors, including groups representing the interests of small business and people like our farmer. At Crown Agents, we’ve set up inter-agency groups like this in the Dominican Republic and Kyrgyz Republic and are encouraging links between TIP/SW work and the NTFC in Bangladesh.
Establishing a means of consistent data collection for the portal is also vital: it’s only as good as the data entered into it, so country and agency ownership and motivation is crucial to make sure that the information is relevant and accurate. In our work for the single window in the Philippines, we created integrated change management and training plans, which enabled more than 30 government agencies to participate, regardless of their level of automation or technology, and gave them better tools to communicate with trade. The portal also needs to be supported by a strong brand, in order to breed confidence in the subsequent trade development work. Transparency, trust and consistency is what traders want to see and a strong brand that carries through the TIP and single window work goes a long way to earn that.
Winning support
A new system for trade requires building an understanding of the opportunities being opened up. Historically, TIPs have often provided information mainly for importers but, as tools of economic growth for developing countries, they need to be just as focused on exporters like our farmer. To achieve this, effective change management, communications and training can’t be underestimated. It’s about changing mindsets – convincing people of the value of such a set-up, be they the people using it or the people running it, and making it accessible.
Interfaces need to be customisable and user friendly, tailored to the habits and abilities of local professionals. In Guyana, for example, we set up a single window automated processing system (SWAP), then developed and implemented an organisational management change plan, prepared operating manuals on the updated processes and designed and delivered training on the new procedures. In doing so we made sure that the Guyanese staff who were responsible for the system had a complete sense of ownership over the system and had no problem taking command of it.
Changing convention
Legislation is key. If a government is unified behind work towards a TIP it signals to business people a commitment to economic growth. Formalising expectations on both sides through memoranda of understanding and service-level agreements is common practice, with changes often reaching the very highest levels. These then need to be made public for traders like our farmer to see clearly what they may expect from the regulatory agencies. In the Dominican Republic, we undertook a detailed analysis of the country’s legislative environment and drafted reforms at the highest national levels, gaining a presidential decree to support the change. The decree sets an even understanding and a level of standards that ensures that all agencies are working to a common quality and towards common aims.
Imagine again that you’re that farmer – but now there’s a TIP in place. Providing you can find access to the internet (and work on mobile technology TIP platforms is moving at a pace with technology itself) the horizon of opportunities now stretches far beyond that which you can see from the borders of your community. A TIP and single window provide you with the vehicle by which you can embark on your journey into international markets.
Andrea specialises in global customs and trade reform project management, with a focus on technology in economic development. She will be a panellist on the Crown Agents-sponsored Guardian live Q&A on trade in the global south on Thursday, April 16.
Content on this page is paid for and provided by Crown Agents a sponsor of the Guardian Global Development Professionals Network.
