The 2019 UN Global Survey on Digital and Sustainable Trade Facilitation is a biannual initiative led by the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in collaboration with the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), and the Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (ESCWA), aimed at monitoring progress on trade facilitation in 128 economies, sharing best practices and identifying capacity building and technical assistance needs in the countries where the survey is carried out.

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An interesting blog on the World Bank website explores the role of women in cross-border trade. The authors comment that, often, trade facilitation initiatives are mainly aimed to support large companies, while the reality is that at many borders, especially in developing and less developed countries, a significant share of such trade is generated by small-scale and informal trade activities that in many cases are conducted by women and that not always are accurately captured by official statistics, as described in another article published by the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), that points out as cross-border trade has a strong gender dimension, being the majority of small-scale cross border traders women.

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