Further to the WCO’s continued commitment to mitigate Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT), a range of Train the Trainer and Accreditation Workshops is conducted under the auspices of the Inama project. The project aims to strengthen the enforcement capacity of targeted Customs administrations in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on the illegal trade in wildlife and in particular on the species listed in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
The third Train the Trainer and Accreditation Workshop took place at the National Customs School of Burkina Faso, also WCO Regional Training Centre for West Africa, between 12 and 22 June 2018. The event was attended by 15 selected Customs officers, representing 6 Customs member administrations from French-Speaking Sub-Saharan African countries – Burkina Faso, being the host administration, but also Cameroon, Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Madagascar and Togo.
The aim of the Workshop was to increase the awareness regarding Illegal Wildlife Trade within the member Customs administrations, whilst building technical skills and knowledge in relation to CITES. The event further contributed to strengthening training skills amongst participants. In addition, the national Customs training frameworks have been evaluated and proposals to include CITES and Illegal Wildlife Trade were developed. These proposals will be submitted to respective senior management for consideration of the possible inclusion of a permanent Illegal Wildlife Trade /CITES training modules in the national training curricula.
Accreditation and Trainings to enhance regional capacity
Following the Workshop, three participants were pre-accredited as WCO Illegal Wildlife Trade experts and shall be fully accredited at a later stage. All attendees were invited to become CITES diplomats within their administrations.
This Train the Trainer and Accreditation Workshop is the third out of three planned events that were conducted under the auspices of the WCO Inama project. Similar trainings were already delivered for targeted Asian countries in Melaka, Malaysia and for English and Portuguese-speaking Sub-Saharan African countries in Lusaka, Zambia.
The whole Inama project is currently funded by the US Department of State and Sweden. This particular activity was sponsored by the US Department of State Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.
For more information on the Inama project, please contact Roux Raath, Head of the WCO Environment Programme, WCO Compliance and Enforcement Sub-Directorate, roux.raath@wcoomd.org.