As part of their cooperation with the Ukrainian government, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) are committed to helping Ukraine strike a balance between the need to maintain security against cross-border crime and the free movement of people and goods thus contributing to trade facilitation while enhancing border security.
UNODC and UNOPS undertook a comprehensive assessment of three seaports and four road Border Crossing Points (BCPs) with the agreement and support of the Ministry of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development. The assessment covered current policies, legislative framework, institutional capacity, infrastructure and procedures. The UNODC - UNOPS team presented specific recommendations for infrastructure upgrades, process automation and digitalization, institutional changes, and personnel capacity building to improve processing capacity and enhance the cross-border crime detection and crime prevention capacity of the BCPs. In particular, the assessment covered Yagodin BCP with Poland, the Chop (Tisa) BCP and the Luzhanka BCP with Hungary, the Uzhhorod BCP with Slovakia as well as the seaports of Odesa, Reni and Mykolaiv. The assessment team consisted of experts from the two UN agencies and border management experts from Ukraine and EU member states.
Representatives from Ukrainian national authorities from Ministry for Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine, State Customs Service of Ukraine, State Border Guards Service of Ukraine, Boryspil Airport, Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority, international partners and embassies took part in a workshop on 14 and 15 December in Kyiv to discuss and validate the findings of the assessment of the four border crossing points and three seaports conducted by the joint UNODC-UNOPS assessment team in July 2023.
The assessment identified significant needs in terms of infrastructure upgrade and equipment provision for the land BCPs and seaports. In addition, the assessment team identified the need for the control procedures optimization to facilitate the processing of people and cargo, namely: reviewing and reducing the duplicating control procedures, automating the processes, interconnectivity of the institutional databases, advance information on people and cargo provision, gradual digitalization of the documents, etc.
The workshop provided a platform for an open exchange on the best way forward to establish additional mechanisms that could optimize trade coordination and facilitation, cross border crime prevention and security awareness in the Black Sea region as well as at the Western borders of Ukraine with the EU member states.
One of the highlights of the workshop was the discussion on the enhancement of Integrated Border Management (IBM) strategy to meet EU requirements, notably by guiding the national IBM strategy through specific trade facilitation actions and improved security measures.
The assessment underlined again the necessity of the national coordination centre on border management, the establishment of which is currently underway. In addition, several ideas were presented to the beneficiary agencies to enhance the coordination on regional cross-border level UNODC and UNOPS underlined the positive impact of the assessment and expressed their deep gratitude and appreciation to the Ukrainian officials and to all participants including donor government representatives who made the assessment and workshop possible.
