In order to foster the sustainability of capacity building workshops conducted since 2019, the WCO Anti-Corruption & Integrity Promotion (A-CIP) Programme innovated by setting up a series of follow-up workshops between March and October 2022, in cooperation with the Customs administrations of Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali and Niger. These workshops reviewed each country’s activities conducted so far under the Programme, and focused on key areas such as internal control, strengthening the organizational culture, relationship with the private sector, and leading change in Customs organizations.
Built in cooperation with each beneficiary Customs administration, these follow-up workshops provided valuable feedback to the WCO A-CIP Programme Experts, aiding the design of future interventions and helped participants to re-affirm their commitments, review extent to which good practices are being implemented, and finalize operational roadmaps. Specific actions that had been carried out were also reviewed. Among them, the organization of customs-private sector forums, or the facilitation of meetings dedicated to the Customs Integrity Perception Survey’s results.
Finally, another focus of the sessions was the importance of long-term change management, in order to meet the challenges of the fight against corruption and the promotion of integrity in Customs.
The WCO A-CIP Programme currently supports over 20 countries in five of the six WCO regions, with funding from Norad and Canada. For more information, please contact capacity.building@wcoomd.org.