Multi-year Expert Meeting on Transport, Trade Logistics and Trade Facilitation, fifth session

The session will address the underlying linkages between, on the one hand, international transport and trade facilitation and, on the other hand, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals. The international community adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, unprecedented in scale and ambition, and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets in 2015. Integrated and indivisible, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development aims at balancing the three dimensions of sustainable development, providing a shared vision and shaping collective action in support of an economically viable, socially inclusive and environmentally-friendly development path.

During 2016, the first full year of implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the international community changed gears, focusing attention on the implementation and operationalization of the Sustainable Development Goals in line with their targets. Transport and trade facilitation, the core areas of trade logistics, encompass activities with strategic importance for globalized trade, supply chains and world economic interconnectedness. They are cross-cutting enabling factors deeply rooted in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and necessary, directly and indirectly, for the achievement of several Goals. UNCTAD has long recognized the nexus between sustainable development and trade logistics. Attention to the integrated treatment of the economic, social and environmental dimensions of transport and trade facilitation has further heightened over recent years as reflected in successive UNCTAD mandates, namely the Accra Accord, Doha Mandate and Nairobi Maafikiano. Against this background and drawing upon UNCTAD work in the field, this session will discuss selected issues that lie at the interface of trade logistics and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The aim is to discuss ways in which countries, in collaboration with all relevant stakeholders, could join efforts to implement sustainable and resilient transport and trade facilitation solutions in support of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, aimed at “transforming our world”.