From 23 May to 01 June the World Customs Organisation (WCO), under the framework of the government of Finland’s East and Southern Africa (ESA) Programme II, piloted a workshop to test and finalise the development of a training package on how to advance gender equality in customs administrations. The workshop, hosted at the Regional Training Centre (RTC) in Pretoria, was attended by participants from Kenya, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
The workshop constitutes an important WCO milestone, as it is the first time that the WCO has developed a complete training package focusing on gender equality in customs.
The WCO training package aims to support customs administrations in implementing gender mainstreaming while addressing the links between gender equality, customs reform and modernisation. Although it primarily targets the ESA region, it is understood that it is the WCO’s intention that the e-material will be made available to all WCO members once it has been developed, which is expected to be by the end of 2018.
The training package includes two tracks, namely a one-week training module targeting middle and senior managers focusing on human resource management and gender mainstreaming, and a broader e-learning module focusing on raising general awareness on gender equality, targeting all customs officers.
According to the WCO, the workshop allows participants to strengthen their knowledge on gender equality by linking to good governance and organisational performance. The workshop also addressed the importance of monitoring and evaluation as an essential part of ensuring sustainable implementation of gender responsive policies. The WCO guided participants through the Gender Equality Organisational Assessment Tool (GEOAT), which it introduced in 2013, and which helps administrations to assess their own policies and practices from a gender equality perspective.