OSCE train-the-trainer course focuses on organizational and operational risk management for customs staff

Expert from the Federal Swiss Customs representing the current OSCE Chairmanship, Miroslaw Ritschard facilitates a scenario-based simulation on risk identification at the OSCE Border Management Staff College. 16 June 2014 (OSCE/Ilona Kazaryan) 

DUSHANBE, 16 June 2014 – A five-day regional workshop on organizational and operational risk management for customs trainers started today at the OSCE Border Management Staff College in Dushanbe. The event is co-organized with the Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities (OCEEA) and the World Customs Organization (WCO).

The course brings together trainers from OSCE participating States in Central Asia, South Caucasus and Eastern Europe, and focuses on effective methods in delivering learning sessions on intelligence-based risk management in customs. A risk-based management approach helps to distinguish compliant and legitimate businesses from potentially non-compliant traders, based on selectivity and profiling. It empowers officials to ensure customs enforcement, security and trade facilitation at the same time.

“Risk management concentrates on detecting and controlling events that have the potential to cause significant problems and enables scope to improve the effectiveness of customs controls,” said Alexander Eliseev, the Chief of Education of the OSCE Border Management Staff College. “It is the key component for customs administrations to better meet the demands of the modern globalized world. Through delivering the knowledge to customs trainers from OSCE participating States, this joint initiative aims to contribute to the improvement of the operational capacities at the borders.”

While addressing participants at training opening Baiba Trukšāne, Senior Expert of the World Customs Organization, said: "The WCO's experience demonstrates that a risk management approach to border control best utilizes customs resources by enhancing trade facilitation and at the same time ensuring that necessary and appropriate control measures are carried out.”

Ruslan Urazalin, Economic Affairs Officer at the OSCE Secretariat, said: “Co-operation in the area of customs, international trade and transport has a direct impact on the economic development of all OSCE participating States. This is particularly true for landlocked countries that depend highly on transit corridors and efficient border services of neighboring countries that offer access to major seaports.”

In the course of the training, WCO experts will concentrate on the latest developments, methods, requirements and tools involved in risk management and balancing trade and transport facilitation with security at border crossings.

The theory sessions will be combined by the practical work and discussions on best practices. One of the examples will be delivered by Miroslaw Ritschard, expert from the Federal Swiss Customs Administration and representing the current OSCE Chairmanship, who will deliver an overview of the Swiss Customs’ risk management and risk analysis methods.

The OCEEA expert will introduce participants to the handbook, Best Practices at Border Crossings: a Trade and Transport Facilitation Perspective, which was published by the OSCE and UNECE (UN Economic Commission for Europe) to promote the exchange of best practices at border crossings.