Mercator Programme

The WCO Mercator Programme was launched in 2014 and is built on the foundations of the WCO Columbus Programme, introduced in 2006. The WCO Mercator Programme was developed as a WCO Strategic Initiative to Support Trade Facilitation and aimed at assisting governments worldwide to implement the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) expeditiously and in a harmonized manner by using core WCO instruments and tools.

The Mercator Programme follows the same development cycle of Columbus, of diagnostic assessment, planning and implementation followed by monitoring and evaluation, and had other similarities such as the development of WCO tools and instruments.

By natural progression, the Mercator Programme has become the overarching WCO capacity building / technical assistance initiative under which support is delivered to requesting Members beyond the WTO TFA technical measures. Support under the Mercator Programme also extends to organization development areas such as strategic planning, human resource development, stakeholder engagement, integrity, gender equality and diversity.

Customs Professionalism and People Development

The WCO has developed a Capacity Building Strategy based on key principles relating to ownership, accountability and empowerment in order to enable Members effectively to implement reform and modernization and to develop their capacities in a sustainable manner.

Human capital is the most valuable asset to keep pace with an ever-changing environment. The WCO has led innovative initiatives aimed at establishing Customs as a profession. New platforms have strived to provide a cooperation framework for Customs Education and to build up solutions to increase the professional knowledge and raise the standing of Customs executives and practitioners.

The importance of setting Customs as a recognized Profession and as a career has led the WCO and its partners to contemplate encouraging national adoption of integrated education, training and development schemes by Customs and Education authorities as well as initiating new approaches to Customs whole-of-career development strategies.

People are the key enabler of any organization and the strategy of having the right person at the right place, at the right time is central. Attracting talents, aligning employee performance with the organization’s mission and values, proactively shaping the future workforce and retaining the top performers are some of the strategic issues that Customs administrations are facing.

The WCO Secretariat has developed several tools to support this approach.

Integrity Programme

Customs administrations around the world play a key role in trade facilitation, revenue collection, community protection and national security. As such, the lack of integrity in Customs can distort trade and investment opportunities, undermine public trust in government administration and ultimately jeopardise the well being of all citizens. Integrity is a prerequisite for the proper functioning of a Customs administration.

WCO promotes Gender Equality and Diversity

Customs Cooperation Funds (CCF)

WCO Capacity Building Programmes & Projects

The WCO is part of a broad network of international agencies working to support reform and modernization along with global, continental, regional and national trade facilitation initiatives worldwide. The following donor-funded multi-year WCO Capacity Building Programmes and Projects have provided the framework for the WCO to finance many support activities and engagements.