Rutendo Tavengerwei, an intern at the Trade Facilitation Agreement Facility and recent graduate of the World Trade Institute, presented at a side event entitled 'Perspectives on Trade Facilitation' during the WTO's 11th Ministerial Conference in Buenos Aires. The session, which took place on 13 December, was hosted by the Institute for the Integration of Latin America and the Caribbean (INTAL) of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) alongside the Ministry of Production of Argentina and various other institutions.     

Rutendo's presentation was on 'Using trade facilitation to assist micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) in cross-border e-commerce'.
In her presentation, she argued that although there are concerns regarding the WTO's relevance, the implementation of agreements such as the Trade Facilitation Agreement would assist WTO members in leveraging cross border e-commerce and enhance MSME participation in trade. 

Among her claims were that 'current provisions of the TFA, including the single window and border agency cooperation, address some of the challenges in cross-border trade such as desynchronization of border agencies and time wastage caused by the multiplicity of procedures'.

In preparing for her presentation, Rutendo was assisted by Nora Neufeld (who taught her MILE course on trade facilitation) as well as several other WTO faculty members.
Rutendo, whose paper is set to be published later this year, presented alongside panelists such as a PhD student from Hamburg and a professor hailing from the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration. 
The 11th Ministerial Conference took place from 10 to 13 December.