Border Liason Officers on Uzbek-Tajik Borders

Cooperation in the field of border management  never was an easy task. UNODC project "Countering the trafficking of Afghan opiates via the northern route by enhancing the capacity of key border crossings points (BCPs) and through the establishment of Border Liaison Offices (BLOs) " aims to build capacities at the Central Asian Border Crossing Points (BCPs), enhance the level of expertise of officers at these crossings and establish working, intelligence-sharing and communications mechanisms between the agencies employed there. The Border Liaison Office (BLO) concept is considered a cornerstone to achieving this objective within the Central Asian Republics of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and it has been extended in an effort to increase communication with counterparts in Afghanistan. Today two working groups besides the Project Steering Committee have been  established in Tajikistan, the same process is ongoing in Uzbekistan. Technical needs assessment missions were conducted by members of the working groups at four border crossing points in both countries. Following the training circle, in order to understand the real training needs and  provide  the most effective training courses, a survey has been conducted involving officials working in the counter-narcotics units of  law enforcement agencies in the Republic of Tajikistan. In this regard, 369 survey answers from Tajik LEAs were analysed by means of employing SPSS and the assessment was conducted in Tajikistan in September 2011. Hereby, this assessment report set a ground for the content of training courses. A similar survey is being carried out in Uzbekistan.