The COVID-19 Recovery Guidelines for Resilient and Sustainable International Road Freight Transport Connectivity in ASEAN (“Guidelines”) were developed by the ASEAN Transport Facilitation Working Group (TFWG) with joint assistance from the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the International Transport Forum (ITF), following the outcomes of the ESCAP-ASEAN-ITF joint webinar on “Preserving Transport Connectivity and Building Freight Transport Resilience in ASEAN” in July 2020.
The Guidelines are designed to support ASEAN Member States in establishing their regional and national transport connectivity recovery plans with a focus on resilience and sustainability, as well as developing regional COVID-19 recovery guidelines on cross-border road freight transport. The Guidelines also contribute to the implementation of initiatives under the ASEAN Comprehensive Recovery Framework adopted at the 37th ASEAN Summit. The Guidelines are non-legally binding documents and can be updated by ASEAN Member States for consideration of TFWG, as and when necessary.[1]
The Guidelines define three priority areas, derived from the findings of the interviews to the ASEAN Member States and representatives of the private sector.
Priority 1: Ensure Transport Workers’ Safety and Training,
Priority 2: Preserving Connectivity for Efficient and Resilient Supply Chains
Priority 3: Building Back Better through Digital, Resilient and Decarbonized Transport Connectivity.
For each priority area, the Guidelines define its guiding principles and actions, and offer a timeline for the implementation, which can be immediate or current, medium term (6 months) or longer-term responses (12 months). The timing of implementation will also have significant implications on the effectiveness of a measure and the costs involved.
To support the implementation of the Guidelines, two (2) dedicated trainings will be offered by ESCAP and collaborating partners on Priority areas 2 and 3: Preserving Connectivity and Building Back Better through Digital, Resilient and Decarbonized Transport Connectivity. The workshop will offer training materials and tools and lectures by dedicated experts in the selected topics. They will conclude by facilitated discussions on recommendations for the possible priority actions by ASEAN Member States to be implemented in 2021-2022 and necessary updates of the Guidelines, as well as deliberations on the support for implementation of these recommended actions.
This work is implemented in line with the ESCAP Framework on Socio-economic response to COVID-19 and as part of the activities of the UNDA project “Transport and trade connectivity in the age of pandemics: Contactless, seamless and collaborative UN solutions”.