Under the auspices of the WCO/JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) Joint Project, the Second Working Group Activity (sub-regional workshop) of the Master Trainers Programme (MTP) on Risk Management and Intelligence Analysis (RM & IA) was held in Accra, Ghana from 5 to 9 August 2019, gathering the same participants from the six countries in West Africa who had participated in the first sub-regional workshop held in Cote d’Ivoire last February.
This workshop is the second in a series of activities to be undertaken by these six Customs Administrations in West Africa, namely Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo to enhance their capacity related to the implementation of RM & IA. The Master Trainer Programme known as MTP is a joint endeavor under the WCO/JICA Joint Project to develop sustainable and self-contained training capacity within the Customs administrations by (1) developing a pool of well-experienced trainers and (2) regionally featured training materials and program to be used by these trainers.
In total, eighteen (18) nominated Customs officials got together again in Accra, to continue work towards the ultimate objective of the MTP. While the first activity (WG1) in February concentrated on (i) identification of regionally common issues and challenges in the area of RM & IA as well as the training needs and (ii) improvement of RM &IA knowledge and expertise, this second activity (WG2) focused more on enhancing the “training skills/knowledge”, and what the required competencies are to become a quality trainer. Experts from the WCO and Japan Customs shared their knowledge and expertise on training , especially in the area of data analysis to achieve the Programme objective. The invited Master Trainer from East Africa (Rwanda Revenue Authority) also shared his experience how MTP contributed to build capacity in East Africa.
Throughout the entire workshop, the participants demonstrated their complete commitment to the MTP and diligently participated in a number of working sessions/group discussions that were held. Both WCO and JICA welcomed the positive “can do” attitude, the noteworthy sense of ownership by the participants and their efforts to ensure sustainable capacity development in the Customs Administrations of West Africa.