The COVID-19 pandemic brought to light the importance for Customs to keep emergency procedures up-to-date and communicate regularly and clearly with supply chain stakeholders, thus protecting business continuity from potential disruptions and ensuring a safe and secure movement of goods across borders. Current climate change trends and natural disasters worldwide confirm the need to pursue efforts in this direction, putting disaster preparedness and staff training at the core of Customs activities.
The WCO COVID-19 Project was launched in July 2020 with the financial support of the Government of Japan to assist Members during disruptive and unstable situations, such as infectious disease outbreaks and natural disasters. This fourth edition of the Project’s newsletter focuses on the guidance provided by the WCO to foster operational readiness. In his foreword, Dr. Kunio Mikuriya, the Secretary General of the WCO, encourages Members "to make the most of the lessons learnt and to prioritize disaster preparedness planning, risk assessment and response coordination”.
Readers will learn more about the valuable work carried out by the Project’s beneficiaries, including Haiti, Tonga, Fiji and Angola Customs, to reinforce their ability to tackle emergencies and on the legal framework developed by the WCO for the speedy clearance and release of relief consignments at borders. The newsletter also offers an overview of the technical tools designed by the COVID-19 Project to help improve Customs procedures for disaster management operations: the Self-Assessment Checklist (an annex to the WCO Guidelines on disaster management and supply chain continuity), the WCO Guide to Stress Tests and the E-learning course on simulation exercises in enhancing Customs’ operational readiness to respond to disruptive events.
Considering the pivotal role of Customs administrations in the humanitarian supply chain, the newsletter also gives ample space to international cooperation and to the strengthening of synergies with other organizations of the public and private sectors involved in disaster relief. In addition, it details best practices for assessing Customs response to disasters and delves into multi-stakeholders simulation exercises to reinforce humanitarian logistics knowledge and technical expertise.
This newsletter follows three other editions published by the COVID-19 Project in June 2022 and in November and June 2021, dealing with IT tools for disaster management, the facilitation of COVID-19 vaccines and pandemic-related best practices implemented by Members, respectively.
The newsletter is available here
Other editions and additional information on the WCO COVID-19 Project are available here