ICMPD-Review-2015

ICMPD Annual Report 2015
42
Capacity Building
Border Management:
From Security to the
Effective Management
of Migration Flows
Border management has traditionally been seen as
merely a security issue. Our work shows, through several
examples, that this is no longer an actuality. In the past
year we witnessed a launch of several projects where
border security is going hand in hand with other sectors
and also serves as a tool for better management of
migration flows.
2015 was marked with an unexpected increase of
migration flows across the external borders of the
EU, increasing mobility of persons and goods as
well as increased fear of terrorism and organised
crime. Despite this, states need to ensure the right
balance between open and, at the same time, secured
and controlled borders. In this regard, we
provided support to our partners in improving their
border management capacities in particular and
strengthening strategic and operational plan ning
through a number of projects of a bilateral or regional
nature. To this end, the concept of integrated
border management (IBM) played a major role in
our day-to-day activities in different regions of the
world. A tailor-made approach enabled countries
such as Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Tunisia,
Lebanon, and the countries of Central Asia to prepare
and draft national IBM strategies along with
comprehensive action plans. Our belief in the
utmost importance of education and training
processes is reflected in our development of modern
distance e-learning tools in the areas of integrated
border management, risk analysis, standard operational
procedures, document security, and trade facilitation.
Countries of the European Eastern Partnership
(EaP) made a milestone achievement in strengthening
cooperation in training areas on a regional and multilateral
basis by signing a memorandum on cooperation
in the region and with selected EU member states
in the training and education area. A regional approach
is relevant to our work and one of the largest
border management programmes – Border Management
Programme Central Asia (BOMCA) – resumed
its work in the region, where ICMPD, among others,
provides a wide range of technical assistance to
Central Asian border agencies. A number of efforts
were directed to support partners in better management
of the flows via border crossing points to shorten
waiting times for traders, while at the same time
increase security aspects. In particular, we assisted