The Trade Facilitation Agreement promises greater trade efficiency by targeting administrative barriers to trade that include unnecessary border inspections, excessive document and data requirements, manual processes, lack of coordination among border authorities and complex inefficient rules and procedures. All of these issues cause delay in the movement of goods and services and increase trade costs. At the back drop of these issues is a critical element, the human resource.

Acknowledging that people are the understructure upon which a successful customs modernization and reform strategy is built, the WCO successfully delivered a People Development Diagnostic mission at Eswatini Revenue Authority (SRA) from 29 April to 3 May 2019, in line with recommendations from their Mercator implementation plan. The WCO assessed the critical competencies and gaps within the context of SRA’s modernization and reform Programme,   paying particular attention to the implementation of the WTO Agreement on Trade Facilitation. The diagnostic mission was conducted on the basis of WCO standards, encompassing strategic orientation, competency and job profiling, planning and performance management, training, career path development, remuneration and benefits.

The WCO experts held consultations with the executive management, and directorates responsible for human resources, corporate services, internal affairs, learning & development, modernization team, operations policy, customs inland operations and border operations. The engagement with SRA was further enhanced through peer matching SRA officials with those from human resource directorate of Malawi Revenue Authority, identified based on their application of best practices in some core HR functions.

SRA pledged its commitment to embrace the principles of competency based management as envisioned in the Framework of Practices and Principles on Customs Professionalism and the WCO guide to implementing competency-based human resource management. The mission culminated in the drawing up of a mutually agreed implementation plan.

This activity was made possible with the generous financial support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Finland and the HMRC-WCO-UNCTAD.