Under the auspices of the WCO/JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) Joint Project, the Second Working Group Activity (sub-regional workshop) of the Master Trainers Programme (MTP) on Customs Valuation (CV) was held in Maputo, Mozambique from 18-22 March 2019, together with the same participants from the five countries in Southern Africa who participated in the first sub-regional workshop held in Zambia in October of last year.
This workshop is the second in a series of activities to be undertaken by these five Revenue Authority countries in Southern Africa, namely Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe to enhance their capacity related to the implementation of Customs Valuation. The Master Trainer Program or MTP is a joint endeavor under the WCO/JICA Joint Project to develop sustainable and self-contained training capacity within the Customs administrations by 1) developing a pool of well-experienced trainers and (2) regionally featured training materials and program to be used by these trainers.
In total, fifteen (15) nominated Customs officials got together again in Maputo, this time to continue work towards the ultimate objective of the MTP. While the first activity (WG1) in October concentrated on (i) identification of regionally common issues and challenges in CV and training needs and (ii) improvement of CV knowledge and expertise, this second activity (WG2) focused more on enhancing the “training skills/knowledge”, and what the required competencies are to become a quality trainer. Experts from WCO, Uganda Revenue Authority, and Japan Customs shared their knowledge and expertise on Customs Valuation and training matters to improve the understanding of the participants on both theory and practical aspects to achieve the programme objective.
Throughout the entire workshop, the participants demonstrated their complete commitment to the MTP and diligently participated in a number of working sessions/group discussions that were held. Both WCO and JICA welcomed the positive “can do” attitude by the participants and their efforts to ensure sustainable capacity development in the Customs Administrations of Southern Africa.