Freeport, Bahamas, 04-05 May 2015

Back to back with the WCO IT Conference held in Freeport, Bahamas, the WCO also held its first regional Workshop on Strategic Leadership in Information Technology from 4 to 5 May 2015.

The workshop saw the pilot deployment of the newly developed "WCO IT Guide for Executives", which aims to raise awareness among senior executives on the importance of having a strategic approach to managing ICT implementation projects in their administrations.

The workshop benefitted from funding from CCF-Japan and was facilitated by experts from the Secretariat and from India. 21 participants from 17 countries in the WCO Americas and Caribbean region participated in the workshop, coming from Argentina, Bahamas, Belize, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Haiti, Mexico, Nicaragua, Saint Lucia, Trinidad & Tobago and Uruguay.

The concept of the workshop on Strategic Leadership in IT is to target senior-management level officials from Customs administrations, such as Director-Generals, Commissioners and Chief Executive Officers, their deputies, as well as senior officials with responsibilities in overseeing ICT projects in their respective administrations. The workshop aims to raise the level of understanding on how top management could strategically oversee IT implementation in the organization through a series of case study exercises that cover themes like strategic planning and its linkages to IT, analysis of business processes and organizational risk management, and the use of ICT in support of the implementation of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement.

Reactions from the pilot participants were extremely positive, especially underlining the timeliness of the new workshop approach with regard to the TFA, but also to modernization and regionalization efforts that are currently on their way. The WCO will carefully analyze the feedback received from participants and facilitators to further develop the workshop materials, methodology and delivery of such workshops on regional and national level.