Traceability provides new means for Governments and trade to use modern information technology and collaborative tools to improve trade and to produce and deliver goods in a more efficient, secure and sustainable manner.
The UN/CEFACT agriculture expert group has already developed an international technical standard for electronic exchange of traceability information. This standard is currently available to trace important business processes of the animal and fish supply chain. Further information on UN/CEFACT traceability is provided at in a briefing note to the Plenary .
The UN/CEFACT traceability standard covers the technical aspects of exchanging eBusiness message for traceability purposes.
Governments and trade are now increasingly looking on traceability standards to assert that the production, transport and distribution of goods and services is in conformity with high level policy objectives and values of the civil society. These policy objectives are directly and indirectly related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
When designing cross border traceability projects were Government agencies are involved the decision makers are facing a number of challenges:
• For example traceability projects typically have many different stakeholders whose diverse interests need to be reconciled. Solutions need to be found to integrate the needs of smallholders, SME and developing countries in a traceability solution.
• Cross border information exchange on traceability events may require agreements between Government agencies and audit of conformity of business processes.
• In addition traceability system that involves Government agencies will also require appropriate Governance and management structures.
The purpose of the traceability framework is to provide a structured approach to describe a traceability system from a functional (stakeholder) point of view which – in a later step - can be implemented in a technical traceability solution. The framework will be used in the early phase of a project lifecycle. It will help stakeholders to describe and discuss the major functional components of a traceability solution and to reach consensus on the high level description of the project.
The main focus of the recommendation will be complex use cases, i.e. use cases were goods are traded across borders and many stakeholders including government agencies participate in a traceability system as these situations will most benefit from a structured planning instrument.
The traceability framework is technology and industry neutral. The Framework can be applied for any traceable asset and any part of the supply chain. It may also be applied on the entire supply chain (“farm to fork”) or on segments of the supply chain.
The framework will build on exiting standards and recommendation of UN/CEFACT. In particular with will complement the existing project deliverable on Traceability with a recommendation that helps decision makers to implement the solution.
The project team will work with the UN/CEFACT transport expert group for application of the traceability framework in this sector for example on the potential relevance of the framework for the Basel convention on controlling transboundary movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal.
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