From 9 to 13 July 2018, a team of experts from the World Customs Organization (WCO) and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA) conducted a national support mission to Nigeria in the framework of the Customs for Relief of Epidemic Diseases (C-RED) Project, funded by the Government of the Netherlands.

The mission was aimed at building the Nigerian stakeholders’ capacity to implement the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for receiving international emergency relief consignments and equipment imported for humanitarian purposes that were developed with the support of the C-RED Project and at testing the implementation of the draft SOPs through a simulation exercise.

The WCO and UN-OCHA experts delivered training on the draft SOPs, conducted a 1-day Training-of-Trainers workshop and facilitated a real-life simulation exercise at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja. In addition, the participants had the opportunity to play a video game that was developed as a learning tool with the support of the C-RED project and is based on the content of the draft SOPs, as well as to take part in training sessions delivered by the newly trained trainers.

The real-life simulation exercise conducted at the Abuja Airport Cargo Terminal was the second simulation exercise under the C-RED project, following the simulation exercise done at the Bamako International Airport a week earlier.

The various workshops and exercises benefited from the active participation of Customs staff from a broad range of Customs formations, representatives of a number of government agencies, humanitarian actors and a clearing and forwarding agent. Among the government authorities represented at the workshop were the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Federal Ministry of Budget and National Planning, the Federal Ministry of Health, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). The humanitarian community was represented by participants from the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Save the Children International, Doctors of the World, Action Against Hunger, Première Urgence Internationale and the INGO Forum.

Similar to the previous workshops organized in Nigeria under the C-RED Project, the training and the simulation exercise provided a valuable opportunity for enhancing further the cooperation between the government stakeholders and the humanitarian community and raising awareness of the work in progress.

In the framework of the mission, the experts from WCO and UN-OCHA had a meeting with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission with the objective of discussing the possible involvement of the ECOWAS Commission in replicating the outcomes achieved under the C-RED project to all ECOWAS Member States.

More information about the C-RED project: http://www.wcoomd.org/en/topics/facilitation/activities-and-programmes/natural-disaster/wco-c-red-project.aspx