In the spirit of advancing collaboration and in line with previous practice, the Green Customs Initiative (GCI) held its 18th annual partners meeting on 7 and 8 February, at the World Customs Organization's offices in Brussels. This gathering was timely given that the theme for 2024's International Customs Day, on 26 January 2024, was, “Customs Engaging Traditional and New Partners with Purpose.”

Patricia Kameri-Mbote, the head of the GCI secretariat, that is hosted within the Law Division of the UN Environment Programme, encouraged the partners to address emerging issues and explore new partnerships to magnify the effectiveness of their interventions. Particularly, trade facilitation, as an integral part of enhancing compliance to multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), was a matter discussed in a special session, with partners having an opportunity to engage with a representative from the World Trade Organization. Additionally, the partners agreed that the private sector was a key constituency to engage given their role in trade.  

The annual partners’ meeting also comes a few weeks before the sixth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly which places a significant focus on MEAs, with an agenda item on MEAs cooperation and an MEAs-dedicated day. The GCI partners had an opportunity to share on important MEAs' matters such as recent decisions of MEAs' governing bodies, relevant processes e.g., prior informed consent procedures, risk profiling, and standard of procedures among others, as well as good MEAs implementation practices.

Lastly, the meeting provided an opportunity for the partners to discuss organizational matters. It culminated in a joint work plan with activities to be implemented in 2024, including capacity trainings and development of knowledge products.