At the invitation of the Office of the WCO Vice-Chairperson for the West and Central Africa (WCA) Region, WCO Deputy Secretary General Mr. Ricardo Treviño Chapa participated in the 25th Meeting of the Experts Committee of the Directors General of Customs of the WCA Region, which was held on 30 November 2021.

Mr. Treviño updated the Committee on the WCO’s progress to date in the area of performance measurement, including the development of the WCO Performance Measurement Mechanism (PMM) and the results of the inaugural International Survey on Customs Administration (ISOCA), these being two important initiatives to support data-driven decision-making in Customs.

The WCO Deputy Secretary General underlined the important milestones achieved in the process of developing a politically-recognized, evidence-based, scored assessment under the PMM, to be used to improve Customs performance while making an impact on economic development and the business environment at the national and international levels.  He went on to highlight the living and evolutionary character of the PMM, which is being developed following a phased approach based on wide consultation and taking into account the evolving strategic priorities of Member administrations. In this connection, he encouraged the WCO WCA Region to participate in the ongoing Pilot on a limited and selected set of KPIs to measure the expected outcomes, including the KPIs concerning use and awareness of the main WCO tools and instruments, in order to further reflect regional perspectives and evaluate the feasibility of data collection using the mechanism, thus ensuring its adaptability and sustainability.

The members of the Experts Committee commended the work done in the margins of the Working Group on Performance Measurement (WGPM) to develop the PMM, and acknowledged the crucial importance of further engagement on the part of the WCA Region, in order to further contribute to, and benefit from this initiative, and to establish the PMM as an enabler to close the development gap by leveraging on Customs’ performance. 

Further updates were provided on the recently-published Report on the inaugural round of the ISOCA Survey, based on the combined efforts of 51 Customs administrations around the world, which included illustrative analyses and aggregates for groups of Customs administrations pertaining to their performance, profiles, practices and structural foundations.

Finally, the WCO Deputy Secretary General highlighted the importance of developing a data analytics and performance measurement culture for more effective modernization and reform programmes at the regional and global levels.

For more information about the PMM and the ISOCA, please contact the WCO Secretariat by e-mail, at pmm@wcoomd.org and/or isoca@wcoomd.org .