Recommendation No. 40
Consultation Approaches: Best Practices in Trade and Government consultation on Trade Facilitation Matters
Author/Source: UNECE through its Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT)
Year of adopting/publication: 2015 (First version)
Document reference: ECE/TRADE/C/CEFACT/2015/9/Rev.1
Link to the document on the internet: Recommendation N.40
Purpose: The purpose of this Recommendation is to Inform governments and the business community of approaches to effective consultations that are flexible, transparent, fair, accountable and participatory. It presents the basic principles, different forms and levels of consultation and includes in annex a toolbox and checklist.
Summary:The Recommendation list six basic principles for consultation approaches:
- Partnership and Trust
- Transparency
- Managing differences of opinion and interests
- Results orientation
- Consultations as an iterative process with respect for time and timing
- Accountability and responsibility
Different form of consultation approaches at various level of the administration, with different purposes and varying level of participation are described to illustrated that often a flexible combination of approaches at different layers is required to engage with all relevant parties: peer-to peer review groups for example are temporary and focused approaches that differ substantially from the purpose and mandate of a permanent body, such as a NTFB.
In the Annex, it also provides planning and execution tools such as change management ideas, an introduction to evaluating consultation approaches and a stakeholder analysis framework.
The Recommendation 40 is complementary to the Recommendation 4 and its guidelines first published in 1975 and revised several times since.
Pages that cite the Rec. No. 40:
NTFB Itinerary – Introduction
NTFB Itinerary – organizational aspects of an NTFB
NTFB- basic principles
