Presentation made during the "Sharing Experience session" on 15 march 2017 - 8th General Assembly of the African Alliance for Electronic Commerce, held in Nairobi.

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Challenges for an Implementation of
an Electronic Single Window
By Sam Toyota,
AACE - Nairobi Conference, 14 March 2017

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The Most Critical Challenges
1. Lack of support from government bodies participating in EWS
implementation
2. Complicated procedures and document requirements
3. Budget and human resource constraints
4. Organization and human resistance to change
5. Inadequate coordination between Customs, other Regulatory
Institutions and the Trade Community
6. Laws and legal challenges, inadequate legal framework
7. Resistance for acceptance of the designated leading agency
8. Lack of information and communication technology (ICT)
9. Security sensitivity issues – trust (Due to centralized information
sharing and electronic documents)

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1. Lack of support from government
bodies participating in EWS
Implementation• Single window implementation is a national level project. Too broad then
become Political
• SW Requires massive changes to the existing system with in government
ministries, agencies participating to the single window and huge
investments.
• Most of the experts accept the lack of government support as a critical
challenge. Governments sometimes mostly focused on physical
infrastructure development (ports, highways and airports) than soft
infrastructure development projects such as a single window.
• Only powerful high rang government decisions is the only party who can
change this systemovernight by bringing an Act of Parliament or making
amendments to the existing rules. We not only need the government
permission but also need the government support to implement single
window.

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2. Complicated procedures and
document requirements
• Most of existing documentation procedures are complex and require
a large number of documents.
• Different agencies use different formats in issuing licenses/permits.
• Most of existing Procedures are very much complex. A single
document requires many approvals and it is passed through multiple
channels before get approved
• But the single window system requires standard documents and
simplified.
• All parties should agree to use a common format for a permit / license
and use only the data elements included in the standard models
(WCO Data Model, APEC, AAEE etc...)

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3. Financial and human resource
constraints
• Single window project needs huge financial investments
• Expensive experts to implement and maintain the system.
• Very little number of single window experts around the world
• It’s a great challenge to implement a system without experienced
human resources.
• Lack of ICT skills with in some if not most of medium and small
entreprise especially in the trading business.
• IT tools requires a heavy budget, this become a greatest challenge if
the government, Donor communities and Private sectors does not
intervene.

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4. Organization and human resistance to
change• Some agencies derive their operating revenue, all or in part, from fees collected.
Simplification is asking them to kill their funding.
• Some agencies are duplicate Customsservices and do not want to lose staffing and
status.
• Traders are also not willing to change current practices of bribe
• Most of the government agencies are corrupted and employees are stick to those
unethical practices.
• Today the bribing has become an industrial norm.
• In both the regulatory agencies and traders,
• Automation and single window systems can eliminate unethical practices such as bribing
and wastage.
• These people are really against the single window system and will show a huge
resistance to change.
• Financial Constraint for small business fund to new additional costs caused by the
automation(Power, internet, computers, printers and IT training

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5. Inadequate coordination between Customs,
other Regulatory Institutions and the Trade
Community
• Single widow system brings different organizations under a one roof.
• Inter organizational coordination is vital in a single window system.
• Bureaucratic attitude and mind-set of the government officials,
hierarchical organization structures and political agendas prevent the
development of collaborative approaches.
• Fear to loos power of each institutions is rampant during the initial
phase of single window

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6. Laws and legal challenges, inadequate
legal framework
• Implementation of single window requires new policy formulation
which in turn urges for amendments to the existing regulations or
formulating new regulations.
• Most of government agencies and Customs most cases are still
governed by the a legal framework which was set even prior to the
independence.
• It does not permit to implement several functions required by a single
window system namely use of computer, paperless environment,
electronic signature etc..
• Different agencies involved in trade which are governed by different
ministers, different acts of parliament . Bringing them under a single
authority requires significant changes to the existing laws

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7. Resistance for acceptance of the
designated leading Agency
• The leading agency is responsible for the managementof the single window implementation program.
• It is crucial that the single window project includes a strong lead agency.
• Very difficulty that an agreement between government agencies as to who should take up the lead
role can be reached easily without third party powerful involvement.
• In manycountries several attempts of single window implementation failed due to the private sector
representation as the lead role without Government ownership.
• Many options of lead agency:
• Customs administration
• Ministry of finance, trade, transport
• PPP,
• Purely Private
• New government body
• It should be noted t has been accepted among all stakeholders that is not proper for one stakeholder
to take the lead role in the process

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8. Lack of information and communication
technology (ICT)
• Government, Big business and Customs sometimes are
fully automated
• But majority of small scale traders still use manual
procedures.
• They are not armed with IT facilities or employees who
are capable of work with IT systems.
• This leads to Failure as well

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9. Security sensitivity issues – trust (Due to
centralized information sharing and electronic
documents)• Some organizations are not willing to exchange information through a
centralized system.
• Most of the organizations are not satisfiedwith electronic documents and
their minds have set to approve physical documents.
• Information submitted by traders may include commercially-sensitive
information, trade- sensitive information, financially sensitive information, etc.
• There is a higher risk of misuse and abuse of information submitted and
maintained in electronic form.
• Abscence of legal framework on cybercrime, electronic commerce and more
especially the acceptabilityof digital evidence in courts of law
• Legal protections and constraints on use of such information are necessary to
prevent misuse.
• In the abscence that can fuel th resistance or delays of implementation

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10. Public awareness and communication
• Stakeholder engagements
• Seminars
• Prevent and Fights misinformation

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Case Studies Challenge approach– Cote
d’Ivoire
• POLITICAL WILL
• New strategic and political agenda of the state prompted all sectors (education, media, transport,
foreign trade...) to create a paperless environment and computerization of their management systems
so as to make access to information faster and therefore improve their efficiency.
• Government objective is to transform Côte d’Ivoire to an emerging country by the year 2020 and be
ranged within the TOP 50 of the Doing business Ranking in 2018.
• IMPLEMENTATION STEPS
 2 agreements were signed, respectively on GUCE-CI and on the « Ruling Center », Center of
Excellence for the determination, classification and valuation of imports.
 Choice of a strategic partner for the implementation: the WEBB FONTAINE Group (specialized in
advanced e-Government solutions aiming at modernizing administrations and facilitating international
trade).

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Case Studies Challenge Approach– Cote
d’Ivoire
– Funding - Creation of Webb Fontaine CI under a partnership arrangement
(PPP)
– Poor Infrastructure - Infrastructure upgrade- equipment, telecom network,
datacenter.
– Resistance to change - Establishment of project teams in collaboration
with customs, Ministry of Trade, Technical Ministry, ports, banks and
private sectors.
– Inadequate skills level - Skills transfer from the start of the project, our
partner’s technical team.
– Reconcile all stakeholder priority needs - Module by module
implementation tailor-made single window.
– Ownership and sustainability – Government is a shareholder in Webb
Fontaine CI, managed by Ivorian's