The World Customs Organization (WCO), in collaboration with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA) and the General Directorate of Guinean Customs, organized a third sub-regional workshop of the C-RED project (Customs: against epidemic diseases).

Like the two previous ones, this workshop brought together the Customs representatives of the beneficiary countries of the project: Guinea, Senegal, Mali, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Nigeria, as well as representatives of their Ministries of Health and of their Disaster Management Agencies. For Guinea, other governmental bodies that attended previous workshops were represented, such as Police, Civil Protection and National Agency of Sanitary Security.

The workshop was officially opened by His Excellency Mr. Ismaël Dioubaté, Minister of Budget. The Director General of Customs and Experts from WCO and UN OCHA also delivered opening remarks that highlighted the importance of the Project. Stakeholders expressed their deep appreciation to the funder, the Government of the Netherlands, and to all the participants who are continuously active on this project. The WCO thanked Guinea as the host and for the perfect organization of this meeting. The presence of the Minister of Budget at the opening ceremony was highly appreciated.

The workshop was an opportunity to review the activities carried out in the beneficiary countries and to underline the excellent results of the Project. It has been a very interactive way of learning from the two and a half years of national support and capacity building. Each one shed light on the progress made but also on the actions to be taken afterward for the continuity of the Project. The participants emphasized the synergy created at national level but also between beneficiary countries. ECOWAS, present at the workshop, welcomed this rapprochement and these discussions, which should be extended to other Member States.

This exchange of experiences, this reinforcement in the collaboration between Intergovernmental Agencies and humanitarian actors has been a great success. At the closing ceremony held at the Customs Headquarters, OCHA in turn stressed the need for maintaining the dialogue established between humanitarian actors and national agencies through platforms of communication.

For further information on the C-RED Project, you may contact capacity.building@wcoomd.org. On this particular event, you may also visit the Guinean Customs webpage:
http://dgd.gov.gn/2018/09/18/coup-de-projecteur-sur-latelier-regional-c-red-omd-en-republique-de-guinee-du-17-au-19-septembre-2018-conakry-hotel-riviera-royal/