Border Management Staff Course for Women Leaders concludes at OSCE Border Management Staff College in Dushanbe

Natalia Spinu, Chief of Cyber Security Center at Moldova, shares her expertise in effective responses to cyberspace intimidating threats, 6 June 2017. (OSCE/Eraj Asadulloev)

DUSHANBE, 9 June 2017 – A one-month Border Management Staff Course for Women Leaders concluded today at the OSCE Border Management Staff College in Dushanbe.

The course completed 25 mid- to senior-level female border security and management officials representing ten OSCE participating States, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Mongolia, Poland, Tajikistan, and Ukraine and one OSCE Partner for Co-operation, Jordan.

The course focused on the modern transnational threats and ways to address them, border security and management models, regional co-operation models, promoting border security and management through effective development of a national strategy, forms of inter-agency and international co-operation, cyber security techniques, customs controls, information sharing, the role of risk management, human rights, gender equality as well as crisis prevention and crisis management. Participants also improved their skills of public speaking, leadership and management.

“The College introduced the first all-women staff course, aiming to contribute to empowering women in the security sector, in May 2014. Since then, once a year, the College organizes this learning opportunity addressing women’s under-representation in border security management and promoting increased recruitment, retention and advancement of female border security and management officials,” said Dita Nowicka, Director of the OSCE Border Management Staff College.

“This course is different from all others as it aims to contribute to further development of the pools of national women experts,” said Nowicka. “I hope that the increased number of prospective women leaders will have an opportunity to contribute to an increased efficiency of their respective national agencies and to develop effective strategies aiming to tackle the challenges of an increasingly transnational nature.”

During the course participants had an opportunity to visit checkpoints at the nearby borders with Afghanistan, and attend a roundtable discussion on Virtual Frontier Protection: Potential Impact on Border Security. This discussion brought together around 80 national and international experts, diplomats, representatives from government agencies and international organizations as well as participants of the 17th and the 18th Staff Courses to exchange ideas and experiences concerning the Cyberspace Intimidating Threats: Trends and Dynamics; Cyber Security Legislation, Best Practices and Standards; and Counteracting Cyber Threats: Effective Strategies.