Trade and Transport Facilitation Assessment : A Practical Toolkit for Country Implementation

Trade facilitation and logistics have become an important policy area in development. Supply chain constraints are now recognized as a major impediment to export led growth. The Trade and Transport Facilitation Assessment (TTFA) is a practical tool to identify the obstacles to the fluidity of trade supply chains. Taking the perspective of service delivery to traders, the TTFA assessment is founded on facts and data collected through a series of meetings and interviews with the main public and private participants to these international supply chains. They include customs and other border agencies, transport regulators, freight forwarders, transport operators, ports, and others. The toolkit helps design plans of action to improve logistics performance among its three main dimensions: infrastructure, services, and procedures and processes. This new edition of the toolkit provides an opportunity not only to reflect the changes in the trade environment and the need for additional features in the toolkit, but also to benefit from the experiences of the assessments already undertaken based on the original edition. In 2001, the Bank issued a first TTFA toolkit based on an original concept developed by John Raven. This initial concept was extensively revised to give the new toolkit an increased operational focus. The semantic change from audit to assessment also reflects the expansion in scope and the emphasis on development of implementable actions beyond the initial diagnosis.