Under the support of West African Customs Administration Modernization (WACAM) project, financed by the government of Sweden, an expert mission in the field of Human Resource Management (HRM) was conducted to the Customs Administration of Benin from 29 October to 5 November 2016. The mission's main objective was to drive the communication plan of the HRM modernization project both internally (all departments of customs) and externally (Ministry of Finance).

The mission, which was attended by a regional HRM expert in order to trigger regional knowledge transfer, allowed the sensitization and experience exchange on the new HRM system of more than 80% of the Benin customs staff, including the headquarter and all departmental directorates of the country. The new HRM system consists of the competencies approach as recommended by their administration. It is important to note that the participants demonstrated interest and constructively reacted to this new approach. They actively participated in the discussions including important recommendations to modernize HRM in their administration, including recruitment management, training process, rotation, career management and performance appraisal.

In addition, in order to gain top management support for this new approach and in order to generalize it on a national level, an important working meeting with the Minister of Finance was held in the end of the mission. At that meeting, the minister showed interest in this project and expressed the hope that the same project could be extended to the Taxes Department.

Finally, the results of this mission will form the basis for a competency assessment operation for HR planning and training requirements to take place in one pilot site, Cotonou airport, in mid-November 2016, and the remaining sites of Benin customs during the first half of 2017.

For more information, please contact the WCO - WACAM project manager, Mr. Richard Chopra (richard.chopra@wcoomd.org).