Under the auspices of the WCO-WACAM Project funded by Sweden, a Human Resource Management (HRM) capacity-building mission was held from 29 June to 7 July 2018 in Niamey, Niger.  The goal of the mission was to launch change management and communication activities both within and outside Customs. Sessions and meetings were held with the Minister of Finance and his team as well as with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in the presence of all importers, exporters and freight forwarders and also the national media, in order to raise awareness and enlist their support for the modernization of its HRM.  In addition, information and communication sessions were held for all staff within the Niamey region.

These change management and communication activities relating to Customs’ HRM modernization mark the start of a new partnership culture embraced by Niger Customs and are the result of a continued commitment shown by the Customs Administration since November 2017.

The HR diagnosis carried out during the first mission in November 2017 has enabled Niger Customs to meet the existing challenges in this area and to focus on establishing solid and lasting foundations for an HRM system, thanks to the support of the WACAM Project.

The modernization project team, which was set up to carry out all roadmap activities, has successfully completed the development of all the tools for a competency-based HRM system (job catalogue, competency reference framework, competency dictionary and job descriptions).

In the coming weeks, Niger Customs, under the direction of WCO experts, will begin competency appraisals for staff at Niamey Airport, which is to be used as a test site to trial this new competency-based approach before it is rolled out to the rest of the country at a later date.

For more information about the WCO-WACAM Project, please contact capacity.building@wcoomd.org.