From 28 September to 1 October 2020, the WCO successfully held a Virtual Regional Workshop on Organizational Performance Measurement for the WCO Europe Region. This important activity, opened by the WCO Deputy Secretary General, Mr. Ricardo Treviño, gathered over 40 participants both working in the field of strategic planning and implementation and field experts in 25 WCO Member administrations. Mr. Ricardo Treviño drew the attention of the participants to the recent WCO initiative for the establishment of a WCO Performance Measurement Mechanism (PMM). He said “we have the ambition for our mechanism to be feasible and relevant for each national administration, taking into account the different perspectives at the regional level and the need to balance them into a globally significant evaluation.”

During this event, Members had the opportunity to exchange experiences and views on performance measurement, including its role for strategic decision-making, development of key performance indicators (KPIs) and data collection. Furthermore, the participants took part in the ongoing efforts to develop the PMM, providing positive feedback on its current design and elaborating it further through group exercises.  

This was the first of a series of Regional Workshops aiming to ensure that the future PMM  provides a politically recognized and evidence-based, scored assessment that can be used to improve the Customs performance while making an impact on the economic development and business environment at national and international level.

The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs of Switzerland (SECO) agreed to join forces with the WCO through the SECO-WCO Global Trade Facilitation Programme, having this topic as one of the key components of the cooperation, considering that while there is a multitude of programs and initiatives in the area of trade facilitation, especially in the international donor community, a comprehensive state-of-the art Customs PMM is still yet to be developed.

Some of the lessons learned include observing the different level of maturity of the Customs Administrations in the establishment of a performance measurement system; the necessity to balance the functionality, legitimacy and rigor of the  evaluation, as well as to assure its sustainability through necessary  adaptation and learning, making it a living WCO mechanism to assist the dynamic needs of strategic decision-making. Overall, the engagement of the participants resulted in a successful workshop and provided important insights that will help the WCO Secretariat fulfill its endeavor of developing this PMM for the benefit of its 183 Members.

For more information please contact capacity.building@wcoomd.org.