TFWA

NTFCs

Background

National Trade Facilitation Committees (NTFCs) play a pivotal role in the national coordination of trade facilitation reforms. This is clearly stated in the international and continental instruments that almost all countries in West Africa have ratified, including in: Art. 23.2 of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), and Art. 28, Annex 4 of the Protocol Trade in Goods of the African Union (AU) African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA).

Because of this, NTFCs are the right platform to bring together the public, private sectors and civil society to address trade bottlenecks and improve trade facilitation within the region. The TFWA Program aims to build a community of practice and a network of Trade Facilitation champions.

The TFWA Program is engaged by the NTFCs’ side to ensure the WTO TFA, the AU AfCFTA, and mandates given by the West Africa governments to the NTFCs are effectively carried out in each country based on international best practices and each nation’s specificities. The program has developed customized regional tools and also sustains and shares experience and good practices within the sub-region.

Supporting West Africa’s NTFCs Through a Customized Maturity Model And Related Toolbox

The TFWA NTFC Maturity Approach: The TEWA Program structures its support to NTFCs around an overarching tool designed to raise each NTFC's maturity level in a
customized way

NTFC

NTFC Performance

Pillar 1

Institutional Capacity
& Decision Making

The ability to operationalize an efficient institutional framework to advocate relevant technical recommendations and effectively influence the government reform agenda related to cross-border trade.

Pillar 2

Strategic Planning, Project
Management and M&E

The ability to plan, monitor and evaluate the execution and implementation of sustainable TF measures ensuring strategic alignment and operational coherence through a result-based approach.

Pillar 3

Consultation, Gender
and Inclusiveness

The ability to integrate inclusive participatory processes to the TF policy-making to guarantee institutional efficiency and accountability.

For more information, explore the TFWA NTFC Toolbox

NTFCs in Action: A closer look at how NTFC members are making a difference

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I would like there to be more training activities of this kind to allow NTFC members to appropriate the materials and to get an overview of certain key concepts and see how they can be applied in their day-to-day work and within the overall framework of trade facilitation activities.