Project Global trade – new challenges for customs policy and customs administration
Project region SADC member states: Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe EAC member states: Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda
Project partner National customs authorities in the member states
Project term January 2005 to June 2012
Budget EUR 10.3 million
Context
Against the background of an increasingly liberalised and globalised world, the traditional functions of customs administrations are changing. This also applies to developing countries, and is particularly true of regional groupings such as the SADC and EAC, whose member states on the one hand are undergoing a process of regional economic integration and for whom on the other hand the loss of customs duties is associated with serious consequences for the revenue side of public budgets.
The interim EPAs entered into at the end of 2007 place the trade relations between the EU and its ACP states on a new footing. The agreements are intended to improve the ACP states’ access to the European market, strengthen their position in international and regional trade and increase their level of regional integration.
If they are to fully exploit the advantages arising from trade, SADC and EAC member states have to overcome structural weaknesses. As well as reforms to trade policy at national level and trade facilitation, this includes expansion of the competences and capability of customs authorities. Customs administrations in the region will take on new tasks, primarily in trade promotion, securing trade flows and monitoring international trade agreements.
Additional requirements will therefore be placed on the training of specialist and managerial staff in the customs administrations and the responsible departments of the ministries of finance or trade.
Project
Germany supports customs administrations in their efforts to reorganise in order to become modern service administrations. The International Leadership Training (ILT) programme Global Trade is aimed at junior man- agement personnel from the customs administrations in SADC and EAC member states, training them to perform their new tasks effectively. As well as primary customs- related topics, other important components of the programme therefore cover themes such as trade pro- motion, trade statistics and monitoring trade agreements. The one-year ILT programme comprises six technical modules on international customs policy, trade policy and legislation at the University of Münster in Germany. The programme also includes practical training at a German customs administration, study visits to the World Customs Organisation (WCO) and the European Commission, and a one-month International Manage- ment Competence course aimed at strengthening the participants’ individual management skills and their future role as multipliers. The ILT programme offers participants the title of Master of Customs Administra- tion upon successful completion.
| MCCL Container terminal in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
As at: June 2011 F A C T S H E E T : R E G I O N A L E C O N O M I C I N T E G R A T I O N Photo: Dr Thomas Petermann | GIZ
Results
The programme ensures a high level of training, strengthens the participants for their traditional customs-related tasks and enables them to gain consid- erable additional expert knowledge and management competence, particularly in new fields such as trade promotion, the compilation of trade statistics and monitoring trade agreements. Many of the alumni of the course to date have risen to more influential positions within their institutions, where they are able to affect the shaping of change processes. As members of regional working committees and steering committees they are able to exchange views and establish contacts at regional level.
The majority of the participants are perceived as important change agents by their respective customs commissioners. Some of them have already been entrusted with specific tasks in relation to organisational development, including the restructuring of customs administration.
The transfer of expert knowledge on the traditional tasks of customs professionals and the new fields of work for customs administrations creates a pool of competent management staff that prepare, help to
shape and implement processes of change. Customs administrations are thus put into a position to introduce and implement the necessary reorganisation – in keeping with the process of converting traditional public administrations into modern service adminis- trations for importers and exporters – and to adapt their national frameworks to international codes of practice (such as those of the World Trade Organisation – WTO), regional integration and changing economic structures in a globalised world.
Contact
Global trade – new challenges for customs policy and customs administration Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH Friedrich-Ebert-Allee 40
53113 Bonn | Germany
Contact person Dr Judith Hoffmann T +49 (0) 30 - 43 996 - 335 F +49 (0) 30 - 43 996 - 336 E [email protected]
I www.giz.de | www.gc21.de/globaltrade
| The third General Assembly of AFRIMETS in Magaliesburg, South Africa, July 2009