The progress made during the first phase of the WCO - WACAM project in some West African Customs administrations on Human Resource Management (HRM) has triggered great interest in Central African Customs administrations. These administrations have now approached the WCO to support them through the WACAM project.

A regional workshop was organized from 4 to 8 May 2015 in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire for the West and Central African region on HRM to provide participants with basic HRM knowledge and skills to effectively commence HR modernization of their administrations.

The Gabon Customs Administration identified HRM as a strategic need for their administration with a specific emphasis on the management of recruitment and the rotation of staff. A WCO mission took place in Libreville from 1 to 4 September 2015 to support the Gabon Customs administration’s HR modernization group and they have successfully completed all the preliminary activities of the action plan, as established in Abidjan in May 2015.

The main objective of this mission was to consolidate all the efforts, including strengthening the capacities of members of the HR modernization committee in competency-based HRM and raising the Steering Committee’s awareness of the importance of the project and the importance of their commitment to its success. This mission resulted in the finalization and validation of a Job catalogue, a competency catalogue and job descriptions for posts in the administration’s general directorate. All of the tools have been presented to those responsible for the general directorate and the regional directorate in Libreville. The HR modernization committee committed to finalize and validate all the remaining tools of staff planning by 15 December 2015.

For more information, please contact the WCO Sweden Programme Manager and the project manager for the WACAM project, Mr. Richard Chopra (richard.chopra@wcoomd.org).