Trends, Threats and Securing Extended Land Borders
There are multiple challenges facing agencies responsible for the security of land borders, especially where borders are long and incorporate difficult terrains, such as deserts and mountains, frozen tundra, wetlands, or jungles. Extremes of weather may be another critical factor that has to be factored in when planning effective border management.
Border threats are also increasingly becoming 3 dimensional, with the increased use by bad actors of subterranean tunnels and new technologies such as airborne drones.
Lack of infrastructure is usually a major problem, even in rich countries like the United States. Power supplies for surveillance systems and communications may not always be available, and a communications infrastructure, such as telephone lines, GSM, and fibre optics are also often lacking or only cover parts of the border.
Roads and tracks for patrolling and interdiction may be only partial or altogether absent.
Maybe the most difficult problem of all is how do you manage your most important resource, your people, to effectively secure borders that may be many hundreds or even thousands of kilometres long. And that human resource is not just your agency staff, but border communities who should be playing a vital role as the eyes and ears on the border.
One solution that has had a lot of publicity in recent years is the building of walls/fences in the US, Southern Europe and Israel, but it is still unclear how effective these have been.
This webinar will discuss:
- What are the current and evolving threat trends?
- What policies and best practices have been successfully employed?
- What technologies can be used as force multipliers?
IOM Regional Office for West and Central Africa: Regional thematic resource person including monitoring and analysing regional thematic trends; engaging with governments and donors in the region to ensure support in the thematic area in line with IOM`s global approaches and policies; monitoring developments of projects in the thematic areas; supporting regional thematic project development, reviewing and endorsing projects related to the thematic area of expertise in the West and Central Africa region.
Experience & expertise:
11 years in the field of migration and border management in Africa, Asia, Middle East and the Pacific working on Migration governance and capacity building in migration and border management (principally border assessments, training curriculum development and training delivery, immigration SOP, document examination and verification processes, community engagement).
She started working with the French General Secretariat for European Affairs (SGAE) in the Free Movement of Persons Unit of the Justice and Home Affairs Department, whose role is to coordinate the international handling of European issues on security, visas, immigration and border management under the authority of the French Prime Minister.
She has spent 5 years working with international cooperation agencies and NGOs (GIZ, Handicap International) as operations and program coordinator in Central Africa and Sahel Region, notably in the DRC and Chad, and has integrated the IOM in Niger in November 2018.
Along with the other 24 IOM State Members in West Africa, IOM Niger through its Immigration and Border Management (IBM) unit has been active since 2015 and has been implementing 6 border management projects in Niger. The IBM division of IOM has the institutional responsibility for overseeing activities related to border management solutions and immigration and visa support services. The Division provides assistance to governments in developing, testing and implementing new approaches to address particular migration processing challenges, including the use of biometrics and automated processing solutions. More specifically in Niger, the IBM unit, with its broader scope of activities, is promoting humanitarian border management, integrated border management, the deployment of the Migration Information and Data Analysis System (MIDAS) across the sub-region countries, community engagement, and technical and material capacity building.
1997-1999 Adviser of Ministry of Education
2002-2005 Chef of Military Inteligence and Counterintelegence Service
2005-2016 University Professor
2016-2017 Adviser of Minister of Internal Affairs for Internal Security
2017-2020 National Coordinator for Integrated Border Management
2019-2021 Educator in Academy for Judges and Prosecutors
After working as a legal advisor for the International Committee of the Red Cross and the French Ministry of Defense, Arthur Langouet has served with the International Organization for Migration (IOM - United Nations Migration Agency) in Niger, Bangladesh and Fiji Islands, mainly on community stabilization, prevention of violent extremism and border security projects.
He is now in charge of the Immigration and Border Management Unit of IOM Mali, based in Bamako. IBM projects in Mali focus on improving security at land border posts, build up trust between security forces and border communities, develop the Migration Information and Data Analysis System (MIDAS), as well as responding to the COVID-19 pandemic at borders.
