Press Release
Workshop on enhancing capacities of West African Member States in the domain of customs, border control and arms trafficking and counter-terrorism
17-19 March 2010, ACSRT, Algiers
From 17 to 19 March 2010, the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) co-organized with the African Centre for the Study and Research on Terrorism (ACSRT) a workshop for West African Member States on “ enhancing capacities of West African Member States in the domain of customs, border control and arms trafficking and counter-terrorism ” . The workshop was co-sponsored by the Governments of Germany and Italy .
This workshop was a follow-up to the informal forum for representatives of West African Member States and donor countries and organizations, held at United Nations Headquarters in New York on 11 July 2007. That forum resulted in identifying common technical assistance needs for West African Member States in the following priority fields: legal, financial law and practice, law enforcement and border control. The workshop comes as a second in the series of which the first one was on law enforcement on 15 th and 16 th of June 2009 at the ACSRT (for more information see: www.caert.org.dz/an/AU-CTED.php)
CTED & ACSRT partnered together, and through the facilitation of CTED, ACSRT the latter held this works in its premises where the following themes were discussed: threats to border control, challenges in protection the long land and maritime borders; the relevant international best codes and practices in protecting the border and the roles of all stakeholders in that process.
The workshop was attended by operational-level officers from relevant agencies in West African States, had a frank, open exchange of views which enabled them discuss the day–to-day challenges they face in managing their borders; in particular the need to take additional, more concrete steps to protect their borders, to combat terrorism and transnational crime. Experts from donor countries also participated, as well as relevant regional organization and offices of international organizations, in addition to the participation of Civil society and academia.
The workshop provided a great opportunity to participating experts to exchange information on current trends and terrorist activities; identify a number of success stories based on the measures and mechanisms they have put in place in accordance with their already existing capacities; identifying collectively common threats and challenges to their border security; and raising awareness on the available solutions among available national and regional capacities and at the international community.
Representatives of CTED, Mr. Mike Smith, CTED Executive Director; Mr. Ahmed Seif El-Dawla, CTED Chief of Section (Africa and the Middle East); and Mr. Jean-Philippe Morange, CTED legal officer, opened the workshop and shared with experts updates on the works of the Counter-Terrorism Committee. Dr. Liess Boukra Acting Director of ACSRT Director; and Mr. Idriss Mounir Lallali, ACSRT Head of Alert and Prevention Unit, discussed with CTED and potential donors the follow up activities to this workshop.
Both CTED and ACSRT will continue working together and follow up on merging their international and regional expertise to enhance West African Member States' counter-terrorism capacities. Further sub-regions will be also addressed in the course on their ongoing cooperation.
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