The seven Spanish-speaking Fellows, currently participating in the 92nd edition of the Fellowship Programme of the World Customs Organization (WCO), are now completing the third component of the Programme taking place within partner administrations.
The Fellowship Programme, which this year marks its 40th anniversary, aims to enable Customs officers from developing countries to acquire sound knowledge of internationally recognized Customs standards, techniques, and practices and to bolster their supervisory and management capacities, thereby helping them carry out reform and modernization processes within their respective administrations.
The Programme maintains a standard structure and is organized in three components over a period of seven weeks. The first component primarily consists of online meetings, self-learning on CLiKC!, and remote tutorship sessions.
A roundtable session with the WCO Secretary General, Ian Saunders, marked the start of the second component and their stay in Brussels. On this occasion, the Secretary General exchanged views with the Fellows, responding to their questions, sharing his vision and priorities, and encouraging them to apply the lessons of the Programme to their careers going forward.
While at the WCO Secretariat, the Fellows were also given the opportunity to participate in a Leadership and Management Development Workshop aimed at enhancing their skills and knowledge, enabling them to contribute more effectively to the development and modernization processes of their respective administrations. They also worked on developing a modernization project under the guidance of a WCO tutor.
A study trip to observe operational practices in a partner Customs administration constitutes the third and last component of the Fellowship Programme. It is currently taking place within one of the following partner administrations: Japan or South Korea.
Thanks to the financial support of and partnerships with the Customs Administration of Japan, as well as the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Korea, the 92nd Fellowship Programme has brought together participants from the Administrations of Azerbaijan, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico and Peru.
For more information, please contact capacity.building@wcoomd.org