The East African Community (EAC), a key player in regional trade integration, and the World Customs Organisation (WCO) conducted a five-day data harmonisation workshop for EAC Partner States Revenue Authorities and Port Authorities. The highly interactive workshop focused on building the technical capacity of EAC Partner States to harmonise the regional trade dataset using the WCO Data Model and other instruments. This highly participative workshop brought together 20 officials at the EAC Head Office in Arusha, Tanzania, from 9 to 13 September 2024 and was conducted under the aegis of the Trade Facilitation and Customs Modernization Programme for Sustainable Development in Sub-Saharan Africa (Sida-WCO TFCM Programme), with funding from the government of Sweden, in which the EAC is a beneficiary and a significant regional partner with the WCO.
At the workshop’s opening, the Director of Customs and Trade at the EAC, Ms Flavia Busingye, expressed appreciation to the WCO for various areas of collaboration and thanked the Partner States for committing to data harmonisation, which plays a vital role in the region. She emphasised the importance data quality in supporting cross-border trade in the EAC and encouraged delegates to engage effectively in the WCO Data Model and other tools during the workshop.
The workshop was preceded by a virtual capacity-building session, which exposed participants to the practical application of the WCO Data Model, the Globally Networked Customs (GNC) framework, and the Unique Consignment Reference. The workshop specifically focused on how these instruments and tools can be applied to support the EAC Single Customs Territory model and the EAC central data exchange platform hosted by the EAC Secretariat. The workshop further built-on strides and the efforts by the EAC to interface Customs and port systems with the central platform.
A major outcome of the workshop was the emphasis on the need to implement international standards in various areas of EAC trade integration, including WCO Data Model and developing a GNC Utility Block for regional Customs and trade interconnectivity. Harmonization and standardization exercise was undertaken by utilizing the WCO DM App, resulting in a comprehensive and harmonized national data catalogue that is in conformant with the international standard, that is the WCO Data Model, by creating a subset of the WCO DM “My Information Package” (MyIP).