Project Governance

Project Working Document

This document is a working document for the project. It provides supporting information for project participants and viewers. It is not part of the project deliverables.

Introduction to the Project

With an original project brief approved in April 2025¹, The UN/CEFACT Global Trust Registry Project (“GTR project”) is capturing and specifying the requirements, governance and technical foundation for a digital directory, publicly accessible and hosted by the United Nations, that would list authoritative registrars of participating UN Member States and the registers that they maintain. The purpose of the UN Global Registrar Information Directory (GRID) is to facilitate digital trust, verification, and interoperability in the global supply chain and public administration systems.

The GRID will enable organisations to verify whether a trade relevant credential (e.g., a commercial registration number, a property title, a trademark ownership certificate) has been issued by a valid and recognized authoritative registrar. It will also mitigate risks of impersonation, forgery, or unverifiable claims that may arise from fragmented or opaque national systems.

To facilitate verification, the GRID will also record if Registrars issue digital credentials or otherwise enable online verification of their register contents and who they have been issued to. In support of the use of verifiable digital credentials, the project will review how Registrars can use the UNTP "Digital Identity Anchor" (DIA) specification² to issue verifiable identifiers for supply chain relevant claims and how these can further support global supply chain transparency and verification. The DIA review will generate guidelines on the use of the DIA specification, and may also generate proposed changes to the DIA specification for the UNTP team.

In summary: the GRID will provide a trustworthy map to the world's supply chain registrars and a guide to how and what they register; and DIAs provide verifiable proof of the registrations of registrars.

Principles

The project design and documentation is based on a number key principles. These were agreed within the project team and presented at the UN/CEFACT Plenary in Geneva in 2025. A simplified version is presented below. Note that item 10 is an additional element to the Geneva presentation and has been added for clarity.

The Project:

1. WILL seek to recognise authoritative registries of participating UN Member states
2. WILL propose a governance framework for a UN CEFACT registry participation process
3. WILL define a data model and verification process for existing registry identifiers
4. WILL support implementation pilots and guidance
5. WILL support key SDGs: Including 9, 12, and 16
6. WILL NOT seek to create [yet another] central registry of all things
7. WILL NOT issue secondary credentials nor issue credentials on behalf of registries
8. WILL NOT disrupt existing business models of nation state registries
9. WILL NOT dictate to nation states what they do, nor how they should do it
10. WILL NOT define yet another standard for identifier(s) to be issued by Registrars

Logical Model

The diagram below is a logical model of the GRID showing a transaction flow across supply chain participants and interactions with the GRID by participants and registrars.

Context model of the Global Registrar Information Directory

Project Management and Delivery

Ways of working

The GTR project broadly follows the UN/CEFACT Open Development Process (ODP) ³. This means that there are public review stages for deliverable documents and artefacts and associated "exit" criteria. "Exit criteria" in ODP are equivalent to acceptance criteria - the way(s) in work is checked to be complete and of required quality. "Project Exit" - stage 5 of the ODP lifecycle means that all deliverables have met their acceptance criteria.

The following text is taken from the UN/CEFACT Open Development Process ³

3. All projects concerned with the development of UN/CEFACT deliverables within the UN/CEFACT Programme of Work need to follow a set of ODP stages related to their deliverable’s publication type. All ODP stages are briefly listed below:
   ODP Stage 1: Project Inception
   ODP Stage 2: Requirements Gathering
   ODP Stage 3: Draft Development
   ODP Stage 4: Public Review
   ODP Stage 5: Project Exit
   ODP Stage 6: Publication ODP Stage 7: Maintenance

4. The minimum set of ODP stages for all projects are:

   • (ODP Stage 1) Project Inception
   • (ODP Stage 5) Project Exit
   • (ODP Stage 6) Publication

5. The list (s) of ODP stages for projects with more than one deliverable is the list of stages required by the deliverable that, if it were the only deliverable for the project, would trigger the most stages. Deliverables that would not trigger specific stages are exempt from them.

6. The actual list of ODP stages required by a project’s individual deliverables, if different from those for the overall project, are described in the Project Inception stage.

Across the range of deliverables for the project (see below), this project expects to make use of all stages of the ODP.

Deliverables

A table of deliverables from the original project brief⁴ together with the original exit criteria is shown below.

#	Deliverables from Project Brief	Original Exit Criteria
PD1	Digital Identity Anchor Requirements (BRS)	Completes public review
PD2	Global Trust Register Requirements (BRS)	Completes public review
PD3	Trust Register Governance Framework (Recommendation)	UN/CEFACT Bureau approval
PD4	DIA credential Schema & vocab	Two verifiable implementations
PD5	Trust Register Pilot system	Two registered identity schemes
PD6	Implementation Guidance (Guidance)	Two verifiable implementations

The original brief ⁴ was written in January 2025 and a call for participation published in April 2025. Work since then has identified a set of documents that map to these deliverables and support the overall project purpose of "uplifting trust and integrity as well as equitable inclusion within the global digital and sustainable trade ecosystem" (see purpose statement in brief).

The table below maps project deliverables from the brief to project documentation and artefacts in this repository. In addition it describes the purpose, acceptance criteria, and target audience (for the accepted artefact). In some instances, more than one project document is used to satisfy a deliverable.

Brief Ref #	Title	Focus	Exit (acceptance) Criteria	Primary Audience	Status
New	Economic Argument	The global economic argument for the GRID and use of the DIA. This includes consideration of an operational GRID funded and operating in a similar fashion to the established ICAO PKD model.	Document Public Review & Bureau Approval	Gov Reps & Economists	Ready for review 2026-06-11
New	Glossary	Definition of terms and acronyms used in the project documentation.	Document Public Review & Bureau Approval	All	Ready for review 2026-06-11
PD1	DIA Legal & Data Structure	The DIA "Trust Wrapper" concept (not a new identifier), use patterns, and the legal articles defining functional equivalence and liability.	Document Public Review & Bureau Approval - supported by Pilots	Regulators & Lawyers	Ready for review 2026-06-11
PD2	GRID Legal Governance & TOM	The operating and legal framework for the GRID Board, membership eligibility, and formal legal annexes (Indemnity, Immunity, and Dispute Resolution).	Document Public Review & Bureau Approval	Secretariat, Lawyers & Gov Reps	Ready for review 2026-06-11
PD2	Participating Registrar Data Schema	Standardized metadata for GRID listing and how the GRID design supports the "inclusive maturity model" for participation.	Document Public Review & Bureau Approval - supported by Pilots	Registrar IT & Data Leads	Ready for review 2026-06-11
PD3	GRID Legal Governance & TOM	The operating and legal framework for the GRID Board, membership eligibility, and formal legal annexes (Indemnity, Immunity, and Dispute Resolution).	Document Public Review & Bureau Approval	Secretariat, Lawyers & Gov Reps	Ready for review 2026-06-11
PD4	DIA Legal & Data Structure	The DIA "Trust Wrapper" concept (not a new identifier), use patterns, and the legal articles defining functional equivalence and liability.	Document Public Review & Bureau Approval - supported by Pilots	Regulators & Lawyers	Ready for review 2026-06-11
PD5	Pilots and Pilot Documentation	Proof of Concepts for the GRID and DIA, including decentralized harvesting, key management, and DIA issuance.	Document Public Review & Bureau Approval - supported by Pilots	Technical Leads & Pilots	Ready for review 2026-06-11
PD6	Implementation Guidelines	Description of how the GRID can be established by UN/CEFACT (or another UN body), how Registrars can join the grid and how the DIA concept can be used by those that choose to use it.	Document Public Review & Bureau Approval - supported by Pilots	All	Ready for review 2026-06-11
New	Annex A - Technical Reference GRID & DIA	Supporting implementation details that do not belong in the high-level economic argument	Document Public Review & Bureau Approval - supported by Pilots	Ministers & Economists, Technical Leads	Ready for review 2026-06-11
New	Annex B - ROI Model	Illustrative framework for thinking about fiscal impact and return on investment (ROI) for a UN Member State participating in GRID/DIA	Document Public Review & Bureau Approval	Gov Reps & Economists	Explanatory supporting information. Non normative
New	Annex C - Economic Argument Research Paper	Detailed research on the economic argument for GRID and the use of the DIA	Document Public Review & Bureau Approval	Economists	Explanatory supporting information. Non normative

Schedule

The project call to participation was released in April 2025 and work commenced shortly after. The 2025 activities focused on requirements gathering.

The 2026 schedule is as shown below.

Status of Deliverables

Explainers

The project maintains a Google Slides presentation that is updated as required and retains previous versions (through the Google Slide file version history). The Google slide project explainer can be found here:

Google Slides Explainer

Google Slides Explainer

We produce a PDF of this explainer from time to time:

View Project Explainer PDF (Mar 2026)

We also have an explainer of the logical model for the GRID, this is available as a PDF:

View GRID Explainer PDF (Nov 2025)

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Participation and Communication

All UN/CEFACT approved projects issue a public call to participation for experts to contribute. The Global Trust Registry project call for participation was published in LinkedIn⁵.

To maximise the chance of success, the project needs representation from a meaningful and diverse group. We need participants with skills and experience across Registry operation and governance, transparency enabling technology (protocols not platforms), as well as business.

The project will remain open to requests to participate until it is closed.

Participation Principles

The general guidance and encouragement is as follows:

• All work will be developed, and all meetings held, on public channels. Anyone and everyone will be able to observe the project as it progresses.

• All work is voluntary and unpaid.

• We encourage contributors with expertise, passion and interest in this topic. We are interested in both technical and organisational/subject matter expertise.

• All contributions will be subject to the UN/CEFACT intellectual property rights policy. We are developing open, voluntary, standards that organisations and countries can choose to adopt.

• All those who wish to contribute rather than observe will need to register as a UN/CEFACT expert using this form https://uncefact.unece.org/display/uncefactpublic/UNCEFACT+Expert+Registration

• Processing of applications is not seen by the project team and will typically involve your country Head of Delegation.
  If there is a delay (>2 weeks say) in your application, please contact the project team (john@sezoo.digital or anica@registradores.org) with details of your application (name and email address used, country etc.), and we will contact the UN/CEFACT secretariat to see if they can help.

Details on how to attend project meetings are described here.

Code of Conduct

The UN CEFACT Open Development Process³ defines a code of conduct for all projects:

1. The following principles should be followed by all members of Project Teams:

   1. To welcome participation by anyone designated as an expert by a Head of Delegation to UN/CEFACT.

      2. To encourage global input.

      3. To work collaboratively and effectively.

      4. To not incorporate specific hardware and/or proprietary software requirements into their processes or deliverables, or the implementation thereof.

      5. To understand and agree to be subject to the UN/CEFACT Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy.⁶

      6. To understand and agree to be subject to the UN/CEFACT Code of Conduct.⁷

Project Communication

Group email : https://groups.io/g/UNCEFACTGlobalTrustRegistry

Slack Channel: https://uncefact.slack.com/archives/C0904NU8SN6

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Footnotes

1. https://uncefact.unece.org/spaces/uncefactpublic/pages/231866476/Global+Trust+Registry ↩

2. https://untp.unece.org/docs/specification/DigitalIdentityAnchor ↩

3. UN/CEFACT Open Development Process ↩ ↩² ↩³

4. https://uncefact.unece.org/spaces/uncefactpublic/pages/231866476/Global+Trust+Registry ↩ ↩²

5. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/global-trust-registry-share-7318341833002999810-85uv/ ↩

6. UN/CEFACT Intellectual Property Rights Policy ↩

7. UN/CEFACT Code of Conduct ↩