A five-days national workshop on the Revised Kyoto Convention (RKC) was held in Windhoek (Namibia) from 6 to 10 July 2015, with the financial assistance from the Finnish Government. The workshop was attended 15 Customs officers from the Namibia Customs and Excise Administrations. The purpose of the event was to improve the understanding of those officers of the use of WCO tools available to examine the level of WCO’s Members related to the compliance of national legislation with the provisions of the RKC, and to support them in conducting a respective self-comparative analysis.

A colleague from the WCO Secretariat and an RKC accredited expert from India facilitated the workshop as experts and shared their knowledge on the RKC and their experience of comparative analysis of discrepancies between the RKC and national legislations. Namibia is already a Contracting Party to the RKC, but wanted to re-examine their legislation. Therefore, Namibia Customs and Excise officers conducted a self-assessment by using the WCO RKC Tool Kit, developed to assess compliance of national legislation especially with the RKC General Annex provisions. In addition, the comparative analyses carried out also covered some RKC Specific Annexes’ Standards and Recommended Practices with a view to future acceptance by Namibia.

The quality of the discussions during the five days reflected the participants’ deep interest in the simplification and harmonization of border procedures. The findings of the comparative analyses have been incorporated in a workshop report drafted by the participants and will be used for future amendment of their national legislation. The WCO has reiterated its readiness to continue to support the Namibia Customs and Excise Administrations further along the way whenever needed.