Improving the Border Agency Cooperation
Among the OIC Member States for Facilitating Trade
10
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Basic concepts
1.1.1. Border Agency Cooperation in trade facilitation
Trade facilitation is about removing and lowering non-tariff barriers to trade via simplification
and harmonisation of formalities and procedures and includes the related exchange of
information and documents between the various partners in the supply chain. 1 The overall
goal of trade facilitation is to make cross-border trade faster, cheaper and more predictable
while ensuring adequate compliance and regulatory control over the traffic. The concept of
trade facilitation is broad and offers many interpretations, but in essence the trade facilitation
philosophy rests on four principles – transparency, simplification, harmonisation and
standardisation – that UNECE calls pillars of trade facilitation. These four pillars call for “full
cooperation among government agencies that have an interest to monitor and control cross-
border trade and travel”.2
One key objective within trade facilitation is to make cross-border trade faster, cheaper and
more predictable while ensuring adequate compliance and regulatory control over the traffic
Border Agency Cooperation (BAC) is a key element in achieving this aim. The essence of BAC in
trade facilitation has been translated into a series of collaborative policies, initiatives and
projects. This does not mean that cooperation should be considered as a panacea for achieving
high levels of facilitation and control simultaneously. It is rather a way of seeing efficient and
effective border management as a common mission across all border control agencies, despite
agency-level priorities and responsibilities. A cooperative mindset leads to agreements on
common goals and commitment of various border control agencies to work together towards
them.
The key thematic areas of Border Agency Cooperation include policy, process, people,
technology, infrastructure and facilities.3 UNECE argues that advancing BAC requires efforts at
many fronts: legal reforms to create a clear and transparent legal framework; organisation to
understand specific needs of different stakeholders; technology to enable electronic exchange
of information; processes to make government and business processes more compatible; and
people to train key personnel to implement the envisioned changes.4 The figure below
illustrates the key differences between an uncoordinated and coordinated approach to border
management.
Figure 1. Differences between uncoordinated and coordinated border management
Source: WCO 2014
1 Trade Facilitation Implementation Guide accessed 19 April 2016)
2 Trade Facilitation Implementation Guide accessed 19 April 2016)
3 Doyle, 2010
4 Trade Facilitation Implementation Guide accessed 19 April 2016).