Mr. Harouna Ouedraogo is a graduate of the National University College of Technology (ENST, University of Dakar) in marketing and of the Higher School of Economics (ESSEC) of the University of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
Harouna OUEDRAOGO began his career in the Customs Administration of Burkina Faso in 1986 as an Auditor and Revisor after training at the National Customs Training School of Burkina Faso (1984-1986), now a Regional Center for Capacity Building for West and Central Africa (WCO), where he obtained a Diploma of Higher Studies and graduated as a Divisional Inspector of Customs. Subsequently, he became the school’s lecturer on customs tariff at the National Customs training School in Burkina Faso after a training-of-trainers’ programme he participated in at the Swiss Customs Headquarters in Bern.

From 1992, after training on Automated System Customs Data (ASYCUDA) and a Training-of-Trainers programme on ASYCUDA, he participated in the work of computerizing Burkina Faso Customs Administration with ASYCUDA after which he held the position of Head of Burkina Faso’s ASYCUDA project whilst as concurrently also became a training consultant with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) for ASYCUDA projects in Member States.
As ASYCUDA and EUROTRACE (statistics management system of foreign trade) systems’ expert and training specialist, he joined ECOWAS in 1994 as a Trainer in the Community Computer Centre of ECOWAS (CCC) responsible for Francophone and Lusophone countries. He handled the deployment of the ASYCUDA system and EUROTRACE system under the EDF-ECOWAS/CCC project in the ECOWAS region and provided training and technical assistance to Member States for such systems.
Mr. OUEDRAOGO also provided training and technical assistance to the countries of Central and Eastern Africa for ASYCUDA and EUROTRACE systems.
Since 2005, Mr. OUEDRAOGO is responsible for the coordination of the ECOWAS regional Customs IT systems Interconnection and Customs Transit Computerization project, ALISA, the trade modernization and facilitation project for West Africa. As such, he participates in the African Union meetings of the technical working group on the interconnection of customs computer systems and the implementation of the single Joint Border Posts.
A specialist and adviser on customs issues for the modernization of customs administrations, trade statistics and trade facilitation, Mr. OUEDRAOGO now holds the position of Principal Programme Officer Training and Technical Assistance and is in charge of the training center (the Center of Excellence) CCC in Lome, Togo.