Articles under section " Dossier: Fragile Borders "

Fragile borders are areas where State agencies, particularly Customs, are unable to operate properly owing to the insecurity created by State or non-State armed groups. Although each fragile and conflict-affected situation (FCS) has its own specificities, similarities do exist across countries in te...

From research to an Action Plan To support Customs administrations which are confronted with FCS, the WCO Secretariat started working with some administrations to analyse the role they play in the security architecture, the strategies they have deployed to meet challenges, the tools and equipment ...

The security crisis gripping a number of regions in Cameroon has severely disrupted the day‑to-day operations of the local Customs surveillance units. Whether seeking to nurture a survival instinct, protect the physical integrity of staff or forge ahead with surveillance missions, these units str...

For almost an entire decade, a number of fragile situations have been observed in Cameroon. Since 2014, the armed terrorist group “Jama’atu Ahlul Sunna Lidda’awati Wal Jihad” (Group of the People of Sunnah for Dawa and Jihad), also known as Boko Haram, has held sway in the country’s North ...

Enhanced cooperation with the defence and security forces Cooperation between Customs and the other administrations is not a recent phenomenon. It has always been part of Customs’ remit to pledge support to the other administrations in view of its privileged position at the borders. Since the em...

In Haiti, the political instability that followed the departure of President Jean-Claude Duvalier in 1986 was compounded by a security crisis caused by the military coup against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991. This culminated in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in 2021 and le...

In terms of its organizational structure, the AGD has a general management and technical and administrative departments. It also has 17 field Customs offices responsible for Customs clearance operations and formalities, 12 of which are based in ports and airports and four along the land border. The...

Abductions The current security situation in Haiti is also having an impact on the working conditions of the AGD and its officials. According to a press release by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, “[t]his [violence] follows the killing of at least 846 people in the first three months of...

In Argentina, the Customs, the National Gendarmerie, the Argentine Naval Prefecture, the Airport Security Police and the Federal Police are all responsible for protecting the country’s territory. Cooperating with these agencies is crucial for Customs in remote territories where security is a majo...

Overnight, I went from working at a desk in Buenos Aires to La Quiaca, a small city in the north of Argentina, on the southern bank of the La Quiaca River, opposite the town of Villazón, Bolivia. I started my Customs control duties by checking baggage at the Customs office of the Horacio Guzmán In...

The Customs Code (Law No. 22,415) divides Argentinian land, water and air territory into many different areas for the application of its control provisions. For the purposes of this article, the most important are: The Primary Customs Zone, where special rules apply to the circulation of people and...

The United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) established a Fusion Cells Programme in January 2020 to support United Nations Member States in developing national mechanisms for the exchange and analysis of counter-terrorism related information and the development of strategic and operation...

The Global Fusion Cells Programme In January 2020, supported by the United Nations Peace and Development Trust Fund (UNPDF) and the Executive Office of the Secretary-General, UNOCT established the Fusion Cells Programme to strengthen “National Interagency Coordination Mechanisms”. The Program...

The Programme also offers 13-week training that includes 12 courses and a complementary study guide. The training focuses on the role of the analyst and follows a modular or “building block” approach, which aims to improve trainees’ skillsets in key work-related areas and provides trainees wit...

The French and Nigerien authorities have been working on setting up a region-specific national training centre on coordinated border management. Its purpose is to train the internal security services of the countries of West Africa that have seen security in their border areas deteriorating. At thi...

The Sahelian border areas, where trade is the main economic resource, were subject to 65% of the violent incidents in 2022. These areas have become sources of financial revenue and influence, for which the armed groups are jostling with the states. In the past, there was little investment in these a...

A region-specific national training centre in Niger Niger has a 5,690-kilometre-long border with seven countries: Algeria and Libya to the north, Chad to the east, Nigeria and Benin to the south and Burkina Faso and Mali to the west. Five of the seven borders are marked by growing insecurity as a re...

Humanitarian organizations are some of the actors operating in fragile and conflict-affected situations. This article looks at the constraints they face, and at how Customs administrations can better support their work. One in every 23 people needs humanitarian assistance In December 2022, the U...

Fragile contexts and the constraints on them Fragility, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), is the combination of exposure to risk and insufficient coping capacities of the state, system and/or communities to manage, absorb or mitigate those risks.[2] In 2...