Following successful implementation in 10 countries in 2020, between January and February this year, 7 more countries undertook a Customs and Integrity Perception Survey under the WCO Anti-Corruption and Integrity Promotion (A-CIP) Programme for Customs, namely: Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Jordan, Lebanon, Malawi, Niger, and Palestine.  The survey aims at assessing the perception of Customs integrity by Customs officers as well as private sector stakeholders, is structured around the ten key factors of the Revised Arusha Declaration, and is designed to assist participating Customs administrations to measure their performance in these areas.

The survey was conducted in-country via specially programmed and encrypted mobile survey station tablets following an approach specially adapted to address the risks related to COVID-19. In total, 1,559 private sector representatives and 2,094 Customs officials were surveyed, resulting in more than 150,000 data points for analysis.  The detailed results of the survey are compiled on a national level and retained by each participating administration, who will respond and take action with assistance from the WCO A-CIP Programme. 

Although the WCO Secretariat cannot publish the full results of the survey, it is worth noting that some aggregate findings reflect that which was seen across the first 10 countries surveyed. Both Customs officers and private sector stakeholders generally feel that achieving a high level of integrity is a priority within their respective administrations.  Additionally, more than half the private sector stakeholders surveyed do not comply with the rules set by administrations because they consider these rules to be overly complex. Further analysis of the aggregate results will be made to complement that already done on the earlier survey by Dutch Customs.

The methodological guidelines, including questions used in the Survey have been made available to all WCO Members on the WCO A-CIP Programme page and are also available in Arabic, Portuguese, and Spanish.

For further details, please contact capacity.building@wcoomd.org.