The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) is one of five regional commissions of the United Nations. Its major aim is to promote pan-European economic integration. To do so, it brings together 56 countries in Europe, North America, and Asia, which dialogue and cooperate on economic and sectoral issues.
One of UNECE's areas of work includes the elaboration of standards and recommendations for electronic business comercial and government processes. One notable exampe is the Electronic Business using eXtensible Markup Language (ebXML) standard, jointly developed with the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards. It also conducts periodic surveys on trade facilitation in paperless trade, in collaboration with other UN regional commissions.
Within the Commission's framework, the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) was created, with the aim to contribute to achieving improved worldwide coordination and cooperation in these areas. CEFACT has issued a number of recommendations on issues such as electronic data interchanges and e-commerce.