From 10 to 13 October 2023, the World Customs Organization (WCO) conducted an Accreditation Workshop for Technical Operational Advisers (TOAs) in the field of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) for the Asia/Pacific region, in Kashiwa, Japan. The workshop was made possible with the financial support of the Customs Cooperation Fund of Japan (CCF/Japan).

The workshop brought together 10 participants and was aimed at selecting candidates from the WCO Asia/Pacific region to be accredited as TOAs in the IPR field, with a view to supporting the implementation of WCO activities under its IPR, Health and Safety Programme in the region. TOAs are highly competent experts, capable of organizing and delivering capacity-building activities on behalf of the WCO Secretariat.

During the four-day workshop, the pre-selected Customs officers from Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong (China), India, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan and Sri Lanka participated in various exercises, including presentations, discussions and role plays, enabling participants to be evaluated not only on their level of technical knowledge in the IPR field but also on their presentation and training skills. The workshop was jointly facilitated by two  experts from the WCO Secretariat.

In line with the new version of the WCO IPR Strategy 2020, approved by the 41st Meeting of the Enforcement Committee in March 2021, the workshop emphasized the importance of building the IPR capacity of Customs administrations through the development of a reliable pool of accredited experts. This workshop will be followed by a field mission to complete the two-phase accreditation process. Only participants who meet the expected level of technical expertise in the IPR field and in terms of their training capacities will be accredited as IPR experts.