Membership
The WCO East and Southern Africa Region consist of 24 Member Countries; Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia , South Africa, South Sudan, eSwatini, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Vision
To establish a seamless, secure and inclusive regional customs environment that facilitates legitimate trade, promotes economic growth and protects our communities through harmonized processes.
Mission
Empowering trade and safeguarding communities to drive economic prosperity through innovative, collaborative and secure customs solutions that harness technology and expertise.
Goal
- Simplify, streamline, and harmonize Customs procedures through automation and paperless processes to facilitate legitimate trade and regional integration.
- Deepen regional integration by capacity building, strengthening institutions, promoting policy harmonization and enhancing cooperation among member states.
- Improve regional connectivity by developing and upgrading regional infrastructure (transportation networks, energy system and telecommunications, including digital systems that support automated and paperless trade processes.
- Promote regional trade and economic diversity by leveraging digital innovations and automated systems for efficient trade facilitation.
- Promote sustainable development through environmentally friendly systems and processes, including paperless trade and digital transformation.
- Enhance cooperation on security issues including trans-national organized illicit financial flows and cyber threats, by utilizing automated and digital surveillance tools.
Values
- Integrity
- Transparency
- Responsiveness
- Innovation
- Inclusivity
Strategic Rationale & Outlook
The Strategy builds on the past successes and the new strategy therefore responds to deepening regional integration through trade facilitation, revenue collection, protection of the society and enhancing human capital development and integrity in the 24 ESA Member administrations through effective coordination and delivery by the ESA Regional Office for Capacity Building and Regional Training Centres supported by the Vice Chair’s Office.