In Blantyre, Malawi, the Steering Committee for ‘Customs Capacity Building in the ESA Region’ met from 9-11 February 2015. The meeting heard reports on the considerable activity over the past year across 21 of the 24 countries in the ESA Region under the Finnish-funded project, which included:
- 1 Top Management Dialogue (Lesotho) and 6 National Policy Dialogues (Uganda, Zambia, Tanzania, Botswana, Mozambique and Rwanda)
- Leadership and Management Development Workshops (Malawi, Zambia, Rwanda and Lesotho)
- nCEN pre-deployment assessment and security audit (Seychelles, Angola, Rwanda, Comoros, Botswana and Mozambique) and nCEN implementation (Namibia, Seychelles, Swaziland and Botswana) and nCEN training (Namibia, Seychelles, Swaziland and Botswana)
- Site visits on coordinated border management to Finland (Uganda, Zambia, Malawi, Botswana and Tanzania)
- 2 CBM and Risk Management Missions (both to Namibia)
- Sub Regional Workshop on Single Window and Data Model for 11 countries
- Regional Workshop on the Gender Equality Assessment tool for 12 countries
- Regional Workshop on Project Management and Resource Mobilization for 17 countries.
Following advice from the 6th Steering Committee meeting concerning the necessity for a possible 2nd phase of the project, based on progress made so far, the Steering Committee considered a draft Concept Note and presentation that were submitted to Finland. The Concept Note fundamentally proposed support for administrations to implement obligations under the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (FTA).
It was also expected that issues such as gender recognition and poverty reduction as indicated in the Finnish Development policy, and other outcome/impact goals will need to be captured in the final Project Proposal.
For more information on the Finnish-funded ESA project for Customs Capacity Building, please contact the Project Manager, Ms. Riitta Passi at riitta.passi@gmail.com.