Libreville, Gabon, 22 – 26 October 2012

The WCO Secretariat organized from 22 to 26 October 2012 an accreditation workshop for French-speaking expert-trainers in Valuation in the city of Libreville, Gabon. This event gathered 13 pre-selected customs officers from the West and Central Africa region, the Middle East and North of Africa region and the East African Community, thanks to the financial support of the Customs Cooperation Fund of Japan.

During a 5-day intensive programme, experts from Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Mauritania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Togo and Tunisia demonstrated their skills and abilities as expert-trainers in the area of Customs valuation. The session was facilitated by two Secretariat’s representatives. 5 expert-trainers have been accredited to lead WCO-branded training activities in their region.

This workshop has been a major achievement, allowing increasing the regional pool of experts available to provide WCO technical assistance in French, as well as contributing to equip these administrations with high-level experts exposed to new international collaboration opportunities. Another important outcome of this workshop was the creation of a regional valuation experts’ network, which will be maintained via the WCO CLiKC! platform and support further regional efforts.