Under the TFA, Member State's obligations regarding publication and availability of information include the following: 
•	Publishing promptly a range of information related to importation, exportation and transit requirements and procedures (see TFA Article 1.1 a-j in ANNEX); 
•	Making available through the internet a description of importation, exportation and transit procedures, the required forms and documents, and contact information on enquiry points (whenever practicable, also in one of the official languages of the WTO); 
•	Establishing an enquiry point (or several) to answer questions from governments, traders and other interested parties, and notifying their contact information; and 
•	Notifying to the Trade Facilitation Committee the official places and URLs of websites where the Member has made available the above information.

WTO also developed Background Note to outline the relationship between TFA and SPS Agreement. (https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/sps_e/tf_sps_e.pdf). In the Background Note, it has stated that as regards to publication and availability of information, there are several intersections between the TFA and the SPS Agreement where SPS requires prompt publication of SPS regulations such as laws, decrees or ordinances which are applicable generally and to establish an SPS enquiry point to answer reasonable questions from other Members and provide relevant documents regarding SPS measures, control and inspection procedures, pesticide tolerance, etc.

As a trend set by International Organizations to regulate the publication and availability of trade information, there are ongoing efforts by many countries to establish Trade Information Portal to meet the regulatory requirement for global trade such as WTO TFA, SPS Agreement, etc. 

With the rapid implementation of Single Window system, the development of Trade Information Portal should be taken into consideration as it requires similar nature of governance/framework to implement it i.e. coordination of information gathering/updates from various government agencies, harmonization/unification of enquiry points and process/procedures to be published etc. 

Therefore, it is timely for UN/CEFACT Domain group to look into/recommend a best practices for such implementation.

A SW is often exposed to regulatory risk and therefore it must be able to adapt quickly to changes in the national and international regulations.  The Project will review the Single Window Suite of recommendations (Rec 33-35, and 36 pending) and build upon those to look at Systemic risk of and to SW and associated systems. Systemic which could be defined in the context of SWS as the risk provided by the inability of one or more of the stakeholders to meet its obligations, or a disruption in the system itself which could result in the inability of other system stakeholders or of institutions in other parts of the economy to meet their obligations as they become due. Such a failure could threaten the stability of the system or of the economy. 
The scope of the project will therefore consider:
•	The legal environment relevant to this principle.  This could include the general legal infrastructure in the relevant jurisdictions (such as the law relating to trade, ports operations, security, safety, banking, customs,..) as well as specific statutes, case law, contracts (for example, single window rules) or other relevant material;
•	The determinant of risk and where the risks are borne should be the rules and procedures of the system. These should define clearly the rights and obligations of all the parties involved and all such parties should be provided with up to date explanatory material. In particular, the relationship between the system rules and the other components of the legal environment should be clearly understood and explained. In addition, key rules relating to risks should be made publicly available
•	The stakeholders environment including, system operator, and other involved parties - in some cases including customers – to clearly the different risks in the system and where they are borne. 
•	The risk management and repository approach.  Whereby identifying the need for a key risk management tool to handle different types of risk and to manage this within a repository being maintained by stakeholders who must also participate in its evolution and its keeping up to date.
The Project will consider these core elements as well as other related elements and create a picture of the complex SW environment and develop a generic recommendation / guidelines to support in identify and managing risk of SW operations.

Deliverable 1:	UN Recommendations for Trade Information Portal
Deliverable 2:	Case Studies template
Deliverable 3:	BRS, schema and CCL harmonization/contribution

Exit Criteria for Deliv. 1:	Public review logs demonstrating that all substantial comments have been addressed; ready for publication.
Exit Criteria for Deliv. 2:	Template presented to the Bureau for potential use
Exit Criteria for Deliv. 3:	Public review logs demonstrating that all substantial comments have been addressed; ready for publication.

Membership is open to UN/CEFACT experts with broad knowledge in the area of: Regulatory cross-border requirements and data modelling

In addition, Heads of Delegations may invite technical experts from their constituency to participate in the work.
Experts are expected to contribute to the work based solely on their expertise and to comply with the UN/CEFACT Code of Conduct and Ethics and the policy on Intellectual Property Rights.

The geographical focus of the project is global.

•	WTO Agreement on Trade Facilitation
•	The Agreement on The Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement)

Participants in the project shall provide resources for their own participation. The existence and functioning of the project shall not require any additional resources from the UNECE secretariat.