In 2023, under the WCO Anti-Corruption and Integrity Promotion (A-CIP) Programme for Customs, 17 of the 25 countries that participated in the first iteration of the Customs Integrity Perception Survey (CIPS) between 2020 and 2021 undertook a second iteration of the survey. The two iterations allow for comparisons, identification of changes and assessing progress over time. An anonymized global comparison of the results shows that, overall, perceptions have improved.
The CIPS was developed under the WCO A-CIP Programme in 2019 and aims to assess quantitatively the perception of integrity in Customs by Customs officers and private sector stakeholders, and is structured around the ten key factors of the Revised Arusha Declaration (RAD). The survey is intended to help participating Customs administrations target and adjust anti-corruption and integrity promotion measures.
Over 11,000 Customs officials and more than 8,500 private sector representatives responded to the two CIPS iterations, yielding nearly a million data points for analysis. The detailed results of the survey are compiled at the national level and retained by each participating administration. The participating administrations also received a summary of the data analysis and actively discussed the findings in follow-up workshops. With support from the WCO A-CIP Programme, they will continue to use the survey findings to guide integrity-related decisions and activities.
The combined, anonymized data shows improvement in all ten key factors of the Revised Arusha Declaration, both for Customs officials and for the private sector respondents. More specifically, at the national level, improvement of perceptions was recorded in 85% of the RAD key factors under which specific initiatives were made with support from the WCO A-CIP Programme across all 17 countries for Customs officials and 72% for private sector respondents. This level of perceptions improvement stands in contrast to an improvement of 73% and 61%, respectively, for the RAD key factors not directly supported by the WCO A-CIP Programme.
The results suggest that Customs administrations undertaking integrity-related measures in line with the WCO Revised Arusha Declaration can have a real and positive impact on perceptions. Moreover, the data objectively shows that WCO A-CIP Programme interventions can further boost this response.
An online version of this survey will be available to all WCO Members in 2024. In addition, the methodological guidelines, including questions used in the Survey, have been updated and will shortly be made available to all WCO Members in English, French, Arabic, Portuguese, and Spanish.
For further details, please contact capacity.building@wcoomd.org and visit the Anti-Corruption and Integrity Promotion (A-CIP) Programme for Customs webpage.