Evaluating New Zealand's support for Pacific customs cooperation

The challenge

The Oceania Customs Organisation (OCO) brings together 24 customs administrations from across the Pacific, with its Secretariat in Suva. Since 1998 it has helped members meet international customs standards, supporting both trade and border security. New Zealand is a core funder, providing NZD 2 million through a Grant Funding Arrangement from October 2021 to December 2024. With that arrangement ending, MFAT wanted to know whether the OCO's operations, programme direction and resourcing positioned it to help members respond to growing regional security challenges, and how New Zealand's future support should be shaped.

What we did

• Carried out an independent programmatic evaluation of MFAT's support, structured around five key evaluation questions mapped to the OECD-DAC criteria of relevance, coherence, effectiveness, impact, efficiency and sustainability.
• Considered how well the OCO Strategic Plan 2022–2027 reflects the role of Pacific customs administrations.
• Delivered an evaluation plan and country-selection approach, a draft report in January 2025 and a final report in March 2025, shared with MFAT, the OCO and the New Zealand Customs Service.
• Set out 15 priority recommendations — 11 for the OCO, three for MFAT and one for New Zealand Customs — each backed by practical proposed actions.

How we worked

We chose eight member countries for close attention using five criteria: customs maturity, remoteness and support received, trade volume, border risk, and representation on the OCO Steering Committee. Kirsty Burnett held consultations in Tuvalu and Fiji, and Sam Taylor (GHD) in Palau, Solomon Islands and Fiji. In total we held 25 interviews with 40 stakeholders, in person and by video, including customs heads, the OCO Secretariat, the OCO Chair in Guam, and officials in Australia and New Zealand. We reviewed strategic, financial and monitoring documents, including the OCO's M&E framework and annual workplans.

Outcomes