MTP in East Africa concludes with a pool of 18 quality trainers on PCA

Under the auspices of the WCO/JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) Joint Project, five (5) East African Customs administrations, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, participated in the 'Master Trainers Programme (MTP)' and made collective efforts in building a pool of experts on Post Clearance Audit (PCA) and in developing their regional PCA training materials to be used by those trainers for more sustainable capacity building in East Africa on this important topic.

In order to support the WCO East and Southern African (ESA) regional strategy on the development of a 'regional pool of experts', the MTP took a holistic approach to build more sustainable training capacity in the region through a series of progressive activities organized under the MTP. Those activities included the organization of Working Groups (WGs) for improving the expertise of participants on PCA, improving their training skills and competences and developing regional training materials/program to be used by the trainers, in which the eighteen (18) nominated officials from the five Customs administrations participated since September 2018 to achieve the objective. On 12-16 April 2021, they got together again virtually at its final, 5th Working Group (WG5) with the experts invited from the WCO, JICA, EAC (East African Community) Secretariat. In this WG5, the participants took responsibility to deliver a 4-day virtual PCA training to test their training skills and expertise as well as the regional training materials they developed. They invited the WCO Professional Associates and the Japan Customs officers who kindly volunteered to act as trainees for this virtual training. All 18 participants demonstrated their outstanding knowledge, expertise and skills as PCA trainers and, as a result, have each successfully received a 'Certificate of Achievement' from the WCO.

Five East African Customs administrations participated in several MTPs which took place in the past and developed approximately 90 'Master Trainers (MTs)' on HS classification, Customs valuation and intelligence analysis in East Africa. Those 90 MTs have been very active in the region and been contributing to trade facilitation in East Africa through the quality training they deliver for both Customs officials and Customs agents. The newly developed MTs on PCA are expected to join the group of MTs and to contribute further to the regional development of East Africa and beyond.

Participants to the MTP have shown their commendable ownership and leadership throughout the MTP, including the time of COVID-19 pandemic, and achieved the objective of MTP together. The experts from the WCO, JICA and EAC Secretariat congratulated the achievement made by the participants and expressed their strong expectations on the important role to be played by the MTs in the development of the region through quality training.

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