African Union to provide keynote at BORDERPOL Congress

Ambassador Smail Chergui, African Union Commissioner for Peace and Security, will deliver an opening keynote presentation at the 4th World BORDERPOL Congress in The Hague, Netherlands.

BORDERPOL bills itself as the only international nonprofit organization whose mission is to support and engage governments and international organizations worldwide to actively promote the facilitation of safe and secure legitimate international travel of people across air, land and sea borders while curtailing terrorists and organized crime, including human and sex trafficking.

The tenets of BORDERPOL’s mission are grounded in the humane treatment of persons, regional and international cooperation, law and criminal justice, minimum international border control and security standards, information-sharing and secure communication with appropriate data protection.

Neil Walker, Director, Programs & Events at BORDERPOL, notes that the organization is pleased to have the African Union Commissioner for Peace and Security make a keynote address.

The African Union Commission for Peace and Security is responsible for the African Union Border Programme (AUBP), designed to unite and integrate Africa through peaceful, open and prosperous borders.

Ambassador Chergui will discuss international border management at the Congress, to and provide insight about the African Union Border Programme (AUBP), as well as the challenges facing Africa as a migrant transition point to Europe.

The establishment of the AUBP aims to address the problems posed by the lack of delimitation and demarcation, which gives rise to ‘undefined zones’, within which the application of national sovereignty poses problems, and constitutes a real obstacle to the deepening of the integration process.

The AUBP also seeks to address cross-border criminal activities through pragmatic border management, along with consolidating the gains made in the regional integration process, as demonstrated by the existence of the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and numerous large-scale cooperation initiatives. The program also works to facilitate the development of cross-border integration dynamics, which are sustained by local stakeholders.

“Since African countries gained independence, the borders – which were drawn during the colonial period in a context of rivalries between European countries and their scramble for territories in Africa, have been a recurrent source of conflicts and disputes on the continent. Most of the borders are poorly defined. The location of strategic natural resources in cross-border areas poses additional challenges,” said Neil Walker, Director, Programs & Events at BORDERPOL. “By transcending the borders as barriers and promoting them as bridges linking one state to another, Africa can boost the ongoing efforts to integrate the continent, strengthen its unity and promote peace, security and stability, through the structural prevention of conflicts.”

BORDERPOL recently held its first North American security event in Washington, D.C. BiometricUpdate.com was a premier media sponsor and provided extensive coverage of that event.

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biometrics  |  BORDERPOL  |  conference  |  world borderpol congress