30th Staff Course concludes at the OSCE Border Management Staff College
The OSCE Border Management Staff College (BMSC) concluded its 30th Staff Course, held in a blended format, on 10 December 2021 with the physical presence of the majority of participants in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
Twenty-five managers from the border, coast guard, migration service, customs, and drug control agencies participated in the course. They represented twelve OSCE States and Partners for Co-operation, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Mongolia, North Macedonia, Portugal, Tajikistan, Thailand, Tunisia, and Turkey.
In his opening remarks, Valeriu Chiveri, Head of the OSCE Programme Office in Dushanbe, highlighted the importance of the course in providing an opportunity for meaningful interchange of ideas, views, and experiences and identification of innovative approaches in achieving sustainable security at the borders.
The one-month course, delivered in an interactive learning style, covered seven modules that present the OSCE’s integrated approach to effective border security and management. The topics covered during the study sessions included, among others, border security and management models, transnational threats, risk assessment, cybersecurity, trafficking in human beings, trade facilitation integrity, and anti-corruption.
Chandmani Bold, Senior Lieutenant, Checkpoint Inspector at the General Authorities for Border Protection of Mongolia and course graduate said that the session on combating trafficking in human beings in the context of border security and management, where the victims shared real life stories, was of particular interest to her.
Throughout the month-long course, participants engaged in face-to-face and online lectures, follow-up discussions and activities, group exercises, research, and two study visits to the K-9 Centre of Tajikistan Drug Control Agency and to the Tajik-Uzbek border.
A roundtable discussion was organized within the framework of the course to talk about the situation in Afghanistan and address current and potential cross-border threats it poses to the Central Asian region. Discussions focused on identifying countermeasures and mitigation strategies in countering cross-border implications and strengthening border controls, taking into account the need to provide safe havens for refugees, to protect their rights and establish referral mechanisms.