From 27 to 31 May the World Customs Organisation (WCO) East and Southern Africa (ESA) Regional Workshop on Business Process Analyses Re-Engineering and Legal Gap Analyses for Building Single Window Environment was organised in Lusaka, Zambia.
WCO Members from the ESA Region, who have recently expressed interest to have support in the above-mentioned area, were invited to participate in the practical exercise organised with the support of the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA).
The WCO ESA region has 22 Members, many of whom have long-standing experience of establishing One Stop Border Posts (OSBPs). At least one-third of ESA Members are at various stages of Single Window implementation, while others started feasibility studies on implementing a Single Window environment.
The Workshop was aimed at building expertise first, on mapping the processes, then making analysis with the perspective of looking at areas of improvement and finally at streamlining. Groups of experts from ESA Members worked with Customs and authorities present at the Churundu OSBP, where they mapped the processes, regulatory requirements for those processes, as well as all supporting documents needed for a specific cross-border transaction.
Relevant international standards, WCO instruments and tools, such as the WCO Data Model and Revised Kyoto Convention (RKC), were highlighted with regards to the semantic interoperability and co-orchestration of business processes in the interfaced and hybrid Single Window models, as well as the importance of harmonised implementation of TFA to ensure interactions of those processes at regional level. The Workshop participants have also discussed the possible impact of new technologies, such as Blockchain, in the Single Window environment.
The Workshop was delivered by the WCO Secretariat staff and a freshly WCO-accredited expert on Single Window environment from the Zambian Customs Administration. The 26 delegates who participated in the workshop were from Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa, Uganda, the Comoros, and Zambia.
Story by: Riaan de Lange