Series Evaluation Insights for Policy and Programming
The report evaluates a GIZ supported training program that helped ECOWAS customs administrations and freight forwarders implement the Common External Tariff and finds the intervention largely relevant, effective and supportive of CET rollout, but constrained by weak domestication, incomplete monitoring and limited strategic engagement beyond technical customs issues. It recommends broadening training content, clarifying institutional responsibilities and strengthening monitoring systems so that future capacity development better supports a uniform, legally grounded application of the CET across all member states.
Context
The ECOWAS Common External Tariff is a core instrument for moving the region from a free trade area toward a customs union by harmonising the tariffs that member states apply to third countries. The CET covers 5 899 tariff lines grouped into five tariff bands between 0 and 35 percent and is linked to accompanying measures that allow temporary deviations on a limited number of lines. Heads of State adopted the CET in October 2013 with implementation initially scheduled for January 2015, reflecting a long negotiation process within ECOWAS and with the UEMOA countries that already operated a CET.
To support this regional reform, the GIZ Support Programme to the ECOWAS Commission, under the Promoting West African Trade Integration Programme (WATIP), organised a large scale capacity building initiative for customs officials and freight forwarders in all 15 member states. The training aimed to equip frontline implementers with the technical knowledge needed to apply the new tariff structure and related procedures consistently, thereby improving compliance and reducing trade costs in the region. Target countries included both UEMOA members, where the CET implied a transition from an existing regional tariff, and non UEMOA members such as Nigeria and Cape Verde, which faced more complex legal and political adjustments.
Intervention Overview
The intervention consisted of a regional training initiative delivered in 2014 and 2015 that combined development of standardised training modules with regional Training of Trainers workshops and subsequent national rollouts. A needs assessment in five Anglophone member states found only average customs knowledge of regional integration and the CET and recommended structured training tailored to different levels of staff and national capacities. In response, ECOWAS and GIZ commissioned four modules in English, French and Portuguese covering regional integration, customs management basics, CET fundamentals and CET accompanying and trade defence measures.
Regional Training of Trainers workshops were held in Abuja, Ouagadougou and Praia, with each member state nominating around five officials who would later act as national trainers for customs administrations and freight forwarders. Organisation of national workshops was shared between ECOWAS, national customs administrations, GIZ regional and GIZ country offices, sometimes via third party contractors, with considerable flexibility to adapt module selection to country needs. According to GIZ reporting, about 1 700 customs officers and freight forwarders were trained in 13 member states in 2014 and a further 480 in four member states in 2015, and some documentation refers to nearly 3 000 persons trained overall.
Evidence: What Worked
The evaluation rates the overall relevance of the training as good, noting that a rapid solution was needed in 2014 to prepare member states for the CET start date and that customs administrations and freight forwarders were the right primary target groups at that time. The technical content of modules was broadly appropriate from a customs perspective and stakeholders considered the focus on harmonised interpretation of the CET rate structure well aligned with the immediate policy challenge.
In terms of effectiveness, the evaluation finds that the program significantly improved knowledge of the CET among customs officials and freight forwarders and that many stakeholders see a causal link between the training and the successful launch of the tariff. Over 90 percent of survey respondents reported feeling well informed about CET themes, 100 percent of trainers and 86 percent of trainees felt able to apply the CET correctly, and around 81 percent of trainees stated that they had applied what they learned in their work. Behaviour change was also reported, with 69 percent of trainees and 87 percent of trainers saying they had experimented with new practices after training, and managers perceived improved monitoring and application of CET provisions at national level.
The training contributed to improved application of the CET from the perspective of both national managers and trainers, who highlighted that a wider range of actors became aware of the instrument and that a common conceptual language emerged across administrations. In UEMOA countries the training helped with migration from the previous regional CET to the ECOWAS version, while in non UEMOA states such as Nigeria it supported the technical aspects of introducing a new tariff schedule, including classification and use of accompanying measures. There is evidence that some customs training schools and competitions have begun to incorporate CET content, indicating early institutionalisation and potential sustainability of knowledge.
From an efficiency standpoint, stakeholders generally perceived the regional Training of Trainers model followed by national workshops as an appropriate and cost conscious approach under time pressure, even though the evaluation could not compute a cost per trainee indicator because consolidated cost data were missing. The use of standardised modules in three languages, combined with some national adaptation, was seen as a pragmatic way to reach a large region within a short timeframe and to respect national contexts.
On impact, the evaluation concludes that the trainings were a crucial support mechanism for the launch of the ECOWAS CET. Trainees and managers reported that knowledge gained improved customs controls, tariff classification and monitoring, and that overall awareness of the CET among officials increased, particularly in non UEMOA countries where the reform implied more substantial changes. The evaluation judges that the theory of change linking capacity building to improved CET implementation largely held, although other factors also shaped outcomes.
Regarding sustainability, there are signs that some training content has been embedded in national training programs and that trained officers are passing on knowledge informally to colleagues. A majority of trainers and managers believed that suitably qualified human resources would remain available to continue CET training, and some national committees and training centres have begun to integrate CET topics into ongoing curricula. This suggests that the intervention has seeded capacities that can be further developed, provided financing and political commitment are maintained.
Evidence: What Did Not Work
Despite its strengths, the program suffered from notable design and implementation gaps, starting with the absence of a specific, consolidated programme document that set out a detailed results framework for the trainings. No clear logframe with outputs, outcomes, indicators, baselines and hypotheses was available, which made it difficult for the evaluators to assess effectiveness and impact against predefined targets and for implementers to monitor progress in real time. GIZ reported trainee numbers to the WATIP steering committee, but an exact, verified total of participants and a breakdown by country and group were missing, and cost data were not consolidated.
The focus of the training content remained heavily on technical customs issues and the CET rate structure, while legal, institutional and political economy dimensions that strongly influence CET implementation received limited attention. The evaluation notes that aspects such as domestication of regional decisions into national law, the role of different legal traditions and the functioning of national and regional CET committees are critical to uniform application, yet these topics were not systematically covered in the modules. As a result, increased technical knowledge did not always translate into full and consistent implementation, particularly where national legal frameworks and institutions were not aligned with regional commitments.
Module quality was uneven from the perspective of different stakeholder groups. Many respondents found Module 1 on regional integration appropriate and Module 3 on CET basics particularly useful, but Module 4 on trade defence and accompanying measures was widely seen as in need of a major overhaul. Producers, parliamentarians and other non customs stakeholders considered the language too technical and legalistic and reported confusion about defence mechanisms and accompanying measures, despite these being central to managing the impact of tariff changes on industrialisation and vulnerable consumers.
The training model did not fully address continuity and follow up. The regional Training of Trainers workshops were organised as one off events without a structured system for continued mentoring, refresher training or peer exchange among trainers and trainees. While an online platform offered by the World Customs Organization was available, many trainers were unaware of it, faced connectivity or registration challenges, and there was no active strategy to embed e learning in the program. This limited opportunities to sustain learning, update content and address emerging implementation issues beyond the initial launch period.
Institutional arrangements and roles were not always clear, leading to problems of coordination, incentives and ownership. Trainers in some countries reported that they were not remunerated, that substitutes sometimes had to step in at short notice, and that national customs administrations were insufficiently involved in preparing and managing workshops. At regional level, practitioners perceived procedures as rigid and not always adapted to local realities, and the division of labour between ECOWAS, GIZ regional, GIZ country offices and national authorities on logistics and content responsibilities was not consistently spelled out.
Finally, the training did not resolve structural constraints to CET domestication and implementation, which lay outside its immediate scope. Complex legislative procedures in dualist legal systems such as Nigeria, delays in translating and adapting legal texts in countries like Cape Verde and weak or under resourced national trade defence institutions continued to hamper full application of CET regulations. In some places, mismatch between CET provisions and domestic realities fuelled political resistance and social tensions, as illustrated by protests from Cape Verdean producers facing unregulated imports and pending legal adjustments.
Lessons Learned
A central lesson is that technical customs training, while necessary, is not sufficient to secure uniform, sustained implementation of a regional tariff reform such as the ECOWAS CET. Capacity development must also cover the legal, institutional and political economy aspects of domestication, including how regional instruments are ratified and incorporated into national law under different legal traditions and how national committees and trade defence authorities function. Future training programs should therefore include modules that help participants understand institutional mandates, decision making processes and accountability mechanisms alongside technical tariff knowledge.
The evaluation also highlights the importance of tailoring training content and methods to distinct stakeholder groups rather than relying on a single, technically dense package. Customs professionals benefit from detailed manuals and exercises that can be used as reference materials and integrated into training schools, while policymakers, parliamentarians, manufacturers and traders need shorter, non technical versions that focus on policy choices, economic impacts and practical implications for their sectors. Simplified pocket guides and sector specific case studies could help bridge this gap.
Experience from Nigeria and Cape Verde underscores the need for context specific support that addresses country level legal and institutional bottlenecks, not only regional customs procedures. In Nigeria, complementary GIZ assistance to the Ministry of Finance and other agencies helped clarify institutional roles and political economy dynamics around CET implementation, showing how national level advisory work can amplify the impact of regional training. In Cape Verde, delayed legal translation and alignment with WTO commitments point to the importance of early legal gap analysis and technical assistance on treaty incorporation.
Another lesson concerns monitoring and evaluation. Without a clear results framework, baseline data and systematic tracking of outputs and costs, it is difficult to assess cost effectiveness, compare approaches and adjust course during implementation. Future interventions should embed simple but robust monitoring systems from the outset that capture participant profiles, learning outcomes, behavioural changes and implementation effects, with data disaggregated by country, institution and stakeholder category.
Finally, sustainability of training outcomes is closely linked to integration into existing institutional structures and incentives, including national customs training schools, civil service career paths and regional centres of excellence. Linking CET knowledge to career progression, as seen in Burkina Faso where competition exams used questions from the CET manual, can create incentives for officers to seek out and retain knowledge, while partnerships with regional training institutions can help maintain and update curricula over time.
Implications for Policy and Programming
For the ECOWAS Commission, the evaluation suggests the need to assume stronger strategic and operational leadership of CET related training, including formalising roles with partners. This could involve memoranda of understanding with GIZ and member states that clarify responsibilities for content development, logistics, financing, reporting and quality assurance, alongside the designation of regional and national CET training coordinators. The Commission should also ensure that training modules explicitly cover institutional arrangements, national CET committees and trade defence authorities so that capacity building promotes complete domestication and enforcement of CET rules.
For bilateral and multilateral donors, including GIZ and the European Union, the findings highlight the value of combining regional training with targeted national level technical assistance on legal alignment, institutional reform and political economy management. Supporting systematic legal gap analyses of CET related laws, protocols and regulations in each member state and funding the revision and expansion of training modules based on these analyses would help align capacity development with concrete implementation challenges. Donors should also invest in monitoring systems and evaluation designs that allow them to demonstrate value for money and learn across countries and phases.
Member states can draw on the evaluation to refine their own capacity development and implementation strategies. Governments should complete domestication of CET instruments, especially trade defence and accompanying measures, and empower national CET or customs committees with clear mandates and resources. They can also integrate CET modules into national customs academies and civil service training programs, use CET knowledge as a criterion in promotions and design sector specific sensitisation and training for manufacturers, traders and parliamentarians. Targeted retreats for senior officials and legislators can help build high level understanding of the strategic importance of consistent regional commitments.
Across all actors, there is scope to exploit blended and digital learning more systematically while recognising connectivity limitations. Clarifying responsibilities for e learning platforms, ensuring user friendly registration procedures, and combining online modules with in person workshops and peer exchanges could extend reach and support continuous learning at lower marginal cost. Policy makers and implementers should consider how to institutionalise such systems within ECOWAS and national structures rather than treating them as short term project add ons.
Potential for Scaling and Transferability
The core elements of the intervention, namely standardised multilingual modules, a regional Training of Trainers approach and national rollout through domestic institutions, are readily scalable within ECOWAS and potentially applicable to other regional policy areas. Similar models could be used to support implementation of the ECOWAS Customs Code, trade facilitation measures, services liberalisation or agricultural trade policies, provided that content reflects the specific legal and institutional complexities of each domain.
Scaling up requires some enabling conditions. These include clear regional ownership, predictable funding from both regional and external partners, and alignment with national legal and institutional frameworks. The evaluation shows that where national programs like Nigeria’s SNTSI complemented regional efforts, impact was greater, suggesting that future scaling strategies should combine regional training with country specific advisory and political dialogue. In addition, partnerships with regional training centres, universities and professional associations can help mainstream content and ensure that scaled programs are anchored in durable institutions rather than dependent on external projects.
Transferability to other regions or initiatives also depends on the ability to incorporate context sensitive modules on domestication, institutional arrangements and political economy, not only technical procedures. Lessons on tailoring content for diverse stakeholder groups, embedding training in existing career and certification systems and building robust monitoring frameworks are broadly relevant for any large scale capacity building related to regional economic integration.
Methodological Notes
The evaluation adopted a theory based approach designed to address attribution challenges in assessing whether the training program contributed to observed changes in CET knowledge and implementation. It reconstructed and tested an implicit intervention logic linking training inputs and activities to outputs (trained officers), outcomes (knowledge and behavioural change) and impacts (improved CET implementation and monitoring), using this as an analytical framework. The study was structured around the five OECD DAC criteria of relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability, with specific evaluation questions under each criterion organised in an evaluation matrix.
Data collection combined several methods. The team conducted document reviews of training needs assessments, module materials, WATIP reports and related studies on CET implementation, alongside an analysis of domestication processes and institutional arrangements in selected countries. Short field visits between April and July 2017 to Cape Verde, Benin, Nigeria and Burkina Faso enabled interviews with ECOWAS and UEMOA officials, national customs administrations, ministries of trade and finance, professional associations, freight forwarders and trainers, supplemented by remote interviews with CET focal points in other member states. Online surveys were administered to 17 master trainers and CET managers, 54 national trainers and 93 participants from customs administrations and the private sector, providing quantitative and qualitative data on perceptions, knowledge and behavioural change.
The evaluation faced notable limitations. The absence of a consolidated programme document for the training and of a baseline on CET knowledge constrained the ability to compare pre and post situations rigorously. Missing information on some national workshops and incomplete cost data prevented precise calculation of indicators such as cost per trainee and made it impossible to fully reconstruct participation by country and stakeholder group. Survey responses may be affected by self selection and recall bias, and the fieldwork covered only a subset of member states, although efforts were made to triangulate findings across sources.
Stakeholder Perspectives
Customs officials and freight forwarders were generally positive about the relevance and usefulness of the training, emphasising that it arrived at a critical moment and provided a much needed common understanding of the CET structure and procedures. Many customs officers viewed the modules as valuable reference materials for daily operations and for use in internal training schools, requesting updates to reflect the latest developments in customs practice. Some respondents suggested increasing the share of practical exercises and case studies, particularly on applying regulations and accompanying measures.
Trainers appreciated the regional Training of Trainers model and felt that it allowed them to cascade knowledge effectively, but they also requested more continuous support, follow up training and clearer recognition for their role. Several noted logistical and incentive challenges, including unpaid preparation time, uneven national support and occasional confusion about responsibilities between ECOWAS, GIZ and national administrations. Trainers expressed a preference for face to face workshops over online formats, though some acknowledged the potential of blended learning if connectivity and platform issues were resolved.
Non customs stakeholders, including manufacturers, parliamentarians, informal sector operators and civil society representatives, often found the existing modules too technical and called for simpler explanations and more focus on the economic and social implications of the CET. In Nigeria, business actors stressed the importance of understanding trade defence mechanisms and accompanying measures to reconcile the CET with industrialisation objectives, while in Cape Verde officials highlighted concerns about the social impact of higher tariffs on basic foods and the need for tailored analysis of the interaction between CET commitments and prior WTO obligations. These perspectives reinforce the recommendation to broaden and differentiate training content beyond core customs audiences.
Key Data Points and Indicators
The WATIP program reported training around 1 700 customs officers and freight forwarders in 13 ECOWAS member states in 2014 and a further 480 in four member states in 2015, with some documents referring to nearly 3 000 trainees overall. In the online surveys, over 90 percent of respondents said they felt well informed about the CET, 100 percent of trainers and 86 percent of trainees declared themselves capable of correctly applying the tariff, and 90 percent of trainees believed they could transfer their knowledge to others. Approximately 81 percent of trainees and all trainers reported applying what they had learned in their work, while 69 percent of trainees and 87 percent of trainers stated that they had experimented with new behaviour after training.
At the time of the evaluation, 9 out of 15 ECOWAS member states were reported to be applying the CET, though with varying degrees of domestication and institutional readiness. The CET itself covers 5 899 tariff lines grouped into five bands between 0 and 35 percent, with accompanying measures allowing temporary deviations on a limited number of lines for adjustment purposes. These figures underline both the scale of the reform and the reach of the initial capacity building effort, while also pointing to the need for continued support as remaining countries align their laws and practices.
Further Resources and Links
The full evaluation report “Evaluation of Trainings on the ECOWAS CET and Adaptation of Training Modules” (Draft final report, 4 August 2017) provides detailed findings, country cases and survey results on which this synthesis is based. The ECOWAS Commission web page on the Common External Tariff offers official information on the tariff structure, legal instruments and related customs policy. GIZ’s factsheet on “Promoting Trade in West Africa II (WATIP II)” describes subsequent support to the ECOWAS Commission on customs, CET application and trade facilitation.
Additional technical analysis can be found in studies on the implications of the CET for trade, production and revenue in ECOWAS, such as the DMI Associates study on integration and tariff effects. For broader context on trade facilitation and institutional capacity building in the region, UNCTAD’s project on strengthening national trade facilitation committees in ECOWAS and OECD’s DAC Evaluation Resource Centre provide relevant documentation and comparative experiences.
Report Citation
Weitzenegger, Karsten, and Dominique Njinkeu, and Quentin de Roquefeuil. Evaluation of Trainings on the ECOWAS Common External Tariff and Adaptation of Training Modules, GIZ Support Programme to the ECOWAS Commission, Saana Consulting, London 2017.
Disclaimer: The author participated in this evaluation. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and cannot be attributed to any affiliated organizations. Portions of the text and images were supported by artificial intelligence.