From 13 to15 March 2023, the Green Customs Initiative (GCI) secretariat, in collaboration with the Government of Vietnam (Department of Climate Change and Department of Anti-smuggling and Investigation , General Department of Vietnam Customs) and UNEP’s OzonAction Unit, organized a training workshop for customs representatives from the Southeast Asia region, in Halong city, Vietnam.

The workshop’s purpose was to enhance customs’ capacity to combat illegal trade in environmentally sensitive commodities, through increased knowledge on multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) and sharing of practical experiences. It presented an opportunity to improve understanding on facilitating compliance to MEAs and to enhance the establishment of collaborative efforts towards integrating green customs within regular customs training programmes. Attendees were exposed to useful resources and tools e.g., the Green Customs Guide to MEAs, to facilitate their day-to-day functions related to MEAs.

Further, the training workshop was held in parallel to the National Ozone Unit Network Meeting and was followed by a twinning workshop for customs and NOU representatives. These meetings enabled customs to interact with their ozone counterparts and iron out practical issues related to data management, risk profiling and customs declarations among others.