Paris - Green Customs Initiative

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Meeting Report, 27 January 2005Furthermore it was considered, that one convention could do the training and theothers participate with various sorts of contribution and commitment from otherpartners.• Regional versus national training: Advantages of national level could be that itis easier to test the manual for the first step of training. On the national level, onecan also be more country-specific, i.e. provide detailed training also on nationallegislation. Furthermore, it secures that the training reaches the in-countryofficials and it prevents from conducting an extensive and difficult follow-up,necessary when doing regional training.However, one reaches more countries with just one training event if it isconducted on the regional level. Widespread knowledge due to training could beachieved faster and at a lower cost.• Needs assessment: To make sure that the training is effective, it needs to bedemand-driven. One has to have a close look on the target countries; i.e. whatlegislation do they have in place, in which area does illegal trade appear mostly intheir country and which is the level of interest of customs officials and otherrelevant stakeholders.• Sustainability: One issue is customs staff turnover. Not only do people move onover time but also the issues evolve over the years. MEAs with Amendments andAppendices that get amended regularly are intensely affected by that. Thesealterations fundamentally change what customs officers are expected to do. Thusit is very difficult to keep front line customs officers up-to-date. Possible solutionsmay be distribution of newsletters, conduct repeated training, offer a regularly updatedweb site and in general, try to get out as much information as possible. Toachieve effective and widespread sustainability one should be able to rely on incountryrepresentatives. Thus it is important to involve the national institutions toinclude Green Customs related training in their training curricula.b) Possible opportunities for Add-on GCI trainingIn this session, the participants discussed the possibility of introducing the GCI ondifferent occasions and possibly testing the Draft Manual at some meetings.Please find below the schedule of upcoming meetings and what might be done:• Ozone Secretariat, Workshop on Illegal Trade, 2 April 2005 (tentative date)This will be an expert meeting held by the Ozone Secretariat on illegal trade. Theorganisation of this meeting was initiated by a MOP decision that suggesteddeveloping a tracking system for illegal trade.• INECE Conference, 14 April 2005INECE holds a Conference in Marrakech from 9-15 April 2005. Mr Markowitzinvited all participants to attend the meeting. He suggested using one of theworkshop sessions to vet the Draft Customs Training Manual. A shortpresentation and then gaining some feedback should be intended.• SIDA & ROAP, 25-27 April 2005The Swedish International Development and Co-operation Agency (SIDA) andthe UNEP’s Regional Office, Asia and Pacific (ROAP) will hold a meeting at theend of April for customs officers on ozone (Regional Network). 22 countries ofSouth East Asia will participate in this networking customs and ozone trainingworkshop. The format for introducing the GCI at this event should be discussedat the regional level.9
Meeting Report, 27 January 2005• DEPI & ROWA, 2-6 May 2005DEPI will organise a meeting on compliance and enforcement in Beirut in cooperationwith the help of the Lebanese Government and UNEP’s RegionalOffice of West Asia (ROWA). This is part of the series of workshops on DEPI’sMEA Compliance and Enforcement Manual. There would be a possibility forinviting additional customs officers and organise parallel and specific customssessions at the meeting.• Interpol, 2-3 June 2005Interpol will organise a meeting in Lyon and offered to provide a presentation onthe Green Customs Initiative. Representatives of Interpol’s National Bureaus fromeach country will participate.• Easter Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia’s Regulatory EnvironmentalProgramme Implementation Network (REPIN), first week of October 2005This meeting, organised by the OECD, brings together policy and enforcementofficials from Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia as well as OECDcountries. It will be held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The OECD offered to use theNetwork to disseminate information and collect feedback about the GCI andvarious activities planned under its umbrella in the EECCA region.• OPCW, October 2005OPCW intends to hold a meeting of officials at the decision-making level inOctober, discussing the requirements of CWC on implementation in terms ofimports and exports. The presence of observers would be welcomed.2. Training Manual• Raising awareness versus detailed training: It was suggested that raisingawareness should only be the first step to target. Further, drafting a manual thatis dealing with all MEAs in a detailed way did not seem to be feasible in the shortterm. It would be too voluminous and would double work already done by thoseSecretariats that already have training material in place.Everyone agreed that two aims should be having customs officers know whom toask when questions arise and providing them with tool kits to act on issuesrelated to MEAs.• Level of previous knowledge of trainees: This needs to be assessed. Mr.Naqvi argued that we do not start the training from scratch. Trainees could befrustrated when confronted with basic information.• Language of training material: The Basel Secretariat explained that theyalways provide their training material in six different languages as stipulated bythe Parties.At least it should be provided initially in three different languages, English, Frenchand Spanish.• Toolboxes: Development of training “toolboxes” was suggested. The advantageof a toolbox would be that it could be modified according to the needs ofcountries participating in the training.• Addressee of the Manual: The draft outline circulated was primarily meant toaddress trainees. Specific materials for the trainers should also be adopted.10
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