During the 12th Session of the Capacity Building Committee (CBC 12), delegates requested the Secretariat to explore the use of a comprehensive and consistent evaluation model that could be applied to the WCO learning and development activities. To this end, the WCO, in consultation with its members and partners, has embarked on the development of a guide on how to evaluate WCO training and development activities, including a range of tools, templates and guidelines for carrying out the evaluation at different levels, based on a result/impact assessment approach.
From 14 to 17 November 2022, the WCO successfully delivered in Eswatini (Mbabane) an expert advisory mission to pilot the new tools seeking for improvement and effectiveness of the proposed approach. The mission was organized under the WCO-EU HS Africa Programme, funded by the European Union, which has been engaged since September 2021 on a pilot project with the Eswatini Revenue Authority (ERA) in the framework of classification and advance ruling capacity building activities. The HS-Africa Programme has engaged with ERA on a series of actions with the support of the WCO People Development Programme to measure the effectiveness of the planned training activities.
In order to get the buy-in and commitment of all actors involved in training, namely: the ERA’s top management, the sponsor, supervisors, the learning and development unit, and participants (learners), several virtual meetings have been organized to explain the approach as well as gather feedback and inputs to improve the proposed framework and make it effective and user friendly.
During this mission, the WCO experts supported the actors in completing the forms and provided further explanations on the approach and the next steps. The pre and outputs assessment activities have been successfully conducted as of this date. Thus, the Training Activity Data Collection form, the Performance Improvement Data Collection Form, the Specific Competency Development Plan, the participant’s satisfaction evaluation form, the trainer’s reaction evaluation form and the trainees’ pre- and post-learning tests have been completed by the main actors. The next steps will consist of monitoring the application of learning by the participants and evaluating the Job Impacts and the Business Impacts through various forms and activities. All the data collected will be analysed and monitored to show the effectiveness and the training impacts.
The ERA’s top management and the participants congratulated the WCO for this innovative approach to evaluate the training impact and reiterated their firm commitment to contribute to the improvement of the proposed approach and tools.
For more information about this activity and the WCO People Development offer, please contact capacity.building@wcoomd.org.