West African Customs Administration Modernization (WACAM) Project sets landmark in Sierra Leone!

Constructive Regional Workshop on Stakeholder Relations held in Freetown, Sierra Leone

The WACAM Project, funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), aims to contribute to ongoing modernization efforts of customs administrations in West Africa. The WACAM Project is a direct response to priority development needs identified by Customs Administrations in the region. Through regional workshops and national support missions, the project aims to present best practices in various areas of strategic management and is delivering capacity building support to address specific needs in the field of Human Resource Management, Stakeholder Relations and Resource Mobilization.

From the 5th to the 9th of November 2012, the National Revenue Authority (NRA) of Sierra Leone hosted its first ever regional workshop in coordination with the World Customs Organization! The NRA has embarked in an ambitious modernization process and has voiced its interest to play a more active role at the regional level to the WCO. The WACAM Project presented the perfect opportunity to materialize the NRA’s wish to be one of the leaders of regional integration and customs modernization efforts in the ECOWAS region and the close cooperation between the WCO and the NRA has yielded in the delivery of a constructive regional workshop under the WACAM Project. The workshop aimed to raise awareness on the importance of establishing structured relations and dialogue platforms with key stakeholders of customs administrations in the context of customs modernization. The workshop covered key topics, which included stakeholder mapping and analysis, modes of stakeholder engagements and communication and negotiation techniques.

The workshop, facilitated by WCO experts and an expert from the South Africa Revenue Service, gathered 11 carefully selected participants from The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. The regional workshop was very well received by the participants and some of them have already enquired about the modalities to receive national support in the field of stakeholder relations.

Based on this positive experience in Freetown, the WCO is now looking forward to the delivery of future regional workshops in Freetown!

For more information or queries, please contact the WCO WACAM Project Manager, Mr. Richard Chopra (Richard.chopra@wcoomd.org ).