G/TBT/GEN/176  
 
16 December 2014  
(14-7283)  Page: 1/2  
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade  Original: English  
 
  PROPOSAL FOR A WTO-BASED ALERT NOTIFICATION SYSTEM  
GLOBAL EXPORT ALERT! NOTIFICATION SYSTEM 
STATEMENT BY UGANDA AT THE TBT COMMITTEE MEETING OF 5-6 NOVEMBER 2014 
The following communication, dated 12 December 2014,  is being circulated at the request of the 
delegation of Uganda. 
 
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  1.  Uganda would like to thank the delegation of Canada for the Proposal for a Global WTO-based 
TBT notification alert system. 
2.  The delegation of Uganda would like to highlight that WTO Members use several mechanisms to 
disseminate notifications to domestic stakeholders including meetings, emails and fax in addition 
to the web-based national notification alert systems that some Members have established.  In 
Uganda for example, relevant TBT notifications are transmitted by email through the Membership 
of the National TBT/SPS Committee that is compos ed of government ministries, departments and 
agencies that by their mandates are responsible for the implementation and administration of the 
TBT or SPS Agreement and the private sector re presented in the Committee by business sector 
associations. 
3.  One of the challenges to the mechanism Ug anda uses to disseminate TBT notifications to 
domestic stakeholders is the weak communication links between private sector business 
associations and their members.  This makes it difficult for notifications to reach all the targeted 
stakeholders.  There is lack of effective coordination between business sector associations and 
their members that hinders the flow of information on TBT notifications to members of business 
associations. 
4.  A subscription-based global WTO TBT noti fication alert system will enable efficient 
dissemination of notifications to domestic stakeholders as this will make stakeholders to only 
receive notifications that are relevant to their sectors.  It will also enable automatic dissemination of notifications to a wider number of stakeholders. 
5.  The other challenge Uganda and other Least Developed and Developing County WTO Members 
face is the lack of feedback in terms of comment s from domestic stakeholders on texts of draft 
TBT measures that are notified to the TBT Committ ee.  This can be evidenced by the few numbers 
of Least Developed and Developing Country Members that request for the floor during discussions 
of Specific Trade Concerns  in the TBT Committee.  This is mainly due to the lack of capacity to 
interpret and understand texts of the draft measures  which are in some cases highly technical.  
The requisite expertise and capacity in government ministries, departments and agencies as well 
as in business enterprises in commenting on texts of notified daft TBT measures is weak.  
Therefore majority of the domestic stakeholders in Uganda do not have capacity to interpret most 
of the draft TBT measures notified to the TBT Committee. 
6.  At the WTO/TBT Committee Seventh Special M eeting on Procedures for Information Exchange, 
the representative of Brazil informed the Committee that its enquiry point provides information to 
Small and Medium sized Enterprises  but noted that very few comments had been received by 
the enquiry point. G/TBT/GEN/176 
 
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  7.  Micro, Small and Medium sized Enterprises (MSMEs)  play a crucial role in the economic 
development of Uganda and indeed the world at la rge.  They are the key drivers of job creation, 
innovation and expansion in many countries.  Uganda has an extensive MSME sector which accounts for approximately 90% of the entire pr ivate sector, over 80% of manufactured output 
and contributes about 75% to the Gross Domestic Pr oduct.  Furthermore, the sector employs more 
than 2.5 million people, which makes it one of the largest employers in the country.  MSMEs in 
Uganda are predominantly informal and young ente rprises, majority of which are aged between 1 
and 5 years.  The Government of Uganda has therefore, identified the sector as one of the key 
areas to achieve growth, employment and socio-ec onomic transformation in the medium to long 
term. 
8.  The ultimate aim of disseminating notification s and texts of draft TBT measures is to enable 
stakeholders to influence the texts of the draft re gulations before adoption and implementation of 
the final regulations.  Domestic stakeholders in Uganda especially MSMEs  do not easily have 
access to the internet.  The telecommunication se ctor in Uganda however is better developed and 
stakeholders have mobile phones.  Use of SMS to alert stakeholders of new TBT notifications will 
therefore enable dissemination of notifications as well as texts of draft TBT measures to a broader 
number of stakeholders. 
9.  In conclusion, Uganda supports the Canadian proposal for the development of a WTO-based 
Global TBT notification alert system but would like to make the following proposals to the Committee for consideration: 
a. The TBT Committee should explore the possibi lity and means of building capacity of 
domestic stakeholders in Least Developed and Developing Country WTO Members 
especially in the private sector to enable stakeholders to interpret the highly technical texts of most of the draft TBT measures noti fied to the TBT Committee.  This could be 
done by providing technical assistance within the framework of technical assistance 
provisions of the WTO TBT Agreement; and 
b. In additional to the automatic  email dissemination of relevant TBT notifications and 
information to the subscribers proposed by Canada, the Global WTO-based TBT 
notification alert system should also incorporate an SMS alert functionality to enable dissemination of TBT notifications especially to MSMEs in Least Developed and Developing Country WTO Members that do not easily have access to the internet. 
 
 
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