Under the auspices of the WCO’s WACAM Project, funded by Sweden, a capacity building mission was held from 12 to 16 March 2018 at Customs headquarters in Bamako, Mali. This mission involved the WCO providing Customs with tailored expertise to build the capacities of its human resource modernization team and enable it to complete the process of modernizing its human resource management (HRM).

This capacity building mission expands on the work done by the Mali Customs Administration, which has been firmly committed to a process of modernizing its HRM since 2017. With the support of the WCO’s WACAM Project, this work has included the Mali Customs Administration successfully developing all the tools needed for a competency-based approach (benchmarks for jobs, competency framework, competency dictionary and job descriptions for all posts) and carrying out a competency assessment on a pilot site.

In the course of the five-day capacity building mission, Mali Customs established an HRM strategy for 2018-2021. The strategy, when used in conjunction with all the competency-based approach tools, will enable Mali Customs to fulfil the Administration’s mission and to maximize the performance of its staff.

In addition, in the light of the promising results achieved by Customs, the Human Resource Department of the Ministry of Finance has expressed an interest in rolling out the modernization of HRM management to all departments of the Ministry. At the end of the mission, a meeting was therefore held at the invitation of the Director of Human Resources for the Ministry’s economic and finance sector to discuss the possibility of giving all departments in the Ministry the opportunity to benefit from HRM coaching from Customs and the WACAM Project.

For more information about this activity and about the WCO’s WACAM Project, please contact WCO-Sweden Programme Director Richard Chopra (Richard.Chopra@wcoomd.org).