The fifth and sixth National Policy Dialogues (NPDs) under the Finnish funded WCO ESA Project ‘Building Trade Capacity through Customs Modernization in the East and Southern Africa Region’ were held from 10 to 14 March 2014 in Kampala, Uganda and Lusaka, Zambia, respectively. The NPDs bring together key Customs stakeholders, including the private sector and government agencies involved in trade and border issues, to consider issues of strategic interest. In Uganda, these issues included the roll-out of the AEO program, coordinated border management and the pilot project in the East African Community to establish a ‘Single Customs Territory (SCT)’. In Zambia, particular attention was paid to the roll-out of the new Customs processing system and a draft legal framework to promote coordinated border management in line with the WTO Agreement on Trade Facilitation.
The dialogues were facilitated by Erich Kieck, the Director of Capacity Building, Mr. Mika Poutiainen, the Head of Customs at Vaalimaa Border Post (Finland Customs) and Mr. Abdul Bonaya of the WCO ESA Project.