Under the auspices of the WCO/JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) Joint Project, the third Working Group activity (WG3) of the Master Trainers Program (MTP) on Customs Valuation (CV) was held in Gaborone, Botswana on 21-25 October 2019.  Almost the same group of candidates who participated in previous workshops, got together again for this sub-regional activity to work on, and make further progress, towards the achievement of the ultimate objective of the MTP.  

This workshop is the third in a series of progressive activities undertaken by the five Revenue Authorities in Southern Africa, namely Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Zambia, to improve their capacity on the implementation of Customs Valuation.  The Master Trainer Program or MTP is a program that has been implemented under the WCO/JICA Joint Project to develop sustainable training capacity within the Customs administrations by developing 1) a pool of well-experienced trainers and (2) regionally-featured training materials and program to be used by these trainers. 

Building upon the first two activities,  fifteen (15) Customs Valuation officials (to-be-trainers) started the development of training materials and model program to meet the specific training needs they identified during the WG1.  Invited experts from the WCO and Japan Customs facilitated various sessions and shared their valuable knowledge and expertise on Customs Valuation to improve the understanding of the participants on both the theory and practice to achieve the MTP objective.    

The participants demonstrated their commitment to the MTP and actively participated in working sessions/group discussions organized throughout the workshop.   Both WCO and JICA welcomed their positivity and reaffirmed their continued support to the Customs administrations in Southern Africa to ensure sustainable capacity development.