From the 10th to the 14th of November 2014, the WCO organized an accreditation workshop for Spanish-speaking officers in the topic of Risk Management (RM) in Montevideo, Uruguay. This event gathered 10 pre-selected Customs officers from the Americas and Caribbean region, thanks to the financial support of the Customs Cooperation Fund of Japan.
The current process for the accreditation of advisers involves a two-step approach. The first step involves a five-day workshop involving a mix of theory and practice. The first step assesses and identifies candidates with a high potential in the given area of accreditation, e.g. RM. The second step involves candidates taking part in an in-county mission with a team leader. This allows the team leader to assesses the candidate’s skills in the field. A candidate who successfully participates in both capacity building activities in terms of overall competency and suitability will be confirmed as a fully accredited adviser.
During the five-day intensive programme, experts from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, United States and Uruguay demonstrated their skills and abilities as experts in the area of RM. The session was jointly facilitated by two WCO Secretariat representatives and one WCO Accredited Advisor from Uruguay. A number of officials were chosen to be invited to undertake step two of the accreditation process and will soon show their facilitation skills during in-country missions that will complete the accreditation process.
This workshop has been a major achievement under the framework of the recent RM regional strategy adopted at the Regional Conference of Customs Directors General of the Americas and Caribbean meeting in Lima, Peru. Part of the strategy aims at increasing the regional pool of experts available to provide WCO assistance in Spanish. This contributes to equipping administrations with well-qualified experts exposed to new international collaboration opportunities in order to support members needs related to RM.