In 2011, the WCO Council adopted the “Resolution on the role of Customs in natural disaster relief”, calling upon the Customs community to provide an appropriate response in case of natural disasters and to facilitate the entry, exit and transit of disaster relief personnel, their equipment and other relief consignments, in order to ensure that aid reaches victims in a timely manner.
The Customs for Relief of Epidemic Diseases (C-RED) Project provides support to the Customs Administrations in West Africa that were mainly affected by the Ebola epidemic crisis namely Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Senegal and Nigeria, to be better prepared to support the fight against the effect of regional epidemic diseases and natural disasters. In order to do so the, project is divided in two components:
Component 1: to provide the front-line officers of three beneficiary member administrations with self- protection equipment
Component 2: to provide Capacity Building to effectively react to regional epidemics and natural disasters
The support of the project is based on WCO tools and instruments including:
- Chapter 5 of Specific Annex J to the Revised Kyoto Convention (RKC),
- United Nations Model Agreement on Customs Facilitation (Appendix to the Guidelines to Chapter 5 of Specific Annex J to the RKC).
- Annex B9 to the Istanbul Convention on temporary admission (relief consignments)
- SAFE Framework of Standards to Secure and Facilitate Global Trade
In the implementation of the project, the WCO greatly benefits from the cooperation with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) and other international organizations including the World Food Programme (WFP) Global Logistics Cluster, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).
The WCO C-RED Project is financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands.