On February 13-15 2018, a group of Kazakh Border Guard Academy trainers visited Bishkek with the aim of exchanging knowledge and teaching experiences with their Kyrgyz colleagues – trainers from the Border Service Training Center and Armed Forces Military Institute of the Kyrgyz Republic.

The BOMCA programme has historically attached a great importance to building effective institutional partnerships and dynamic collaborative processes between the training institutions of CA and EU border security-related agencies. To this effect, CA Customs and BG training institutions Consortia were launched at the initiative of the BOMCA Programme in 2011, as a forum for cooperation towards the development of a harmonised and efficient training system for Central Asia Customs and BG staff.

To this end, based on a list of educational topics jointly defined during project Consortium meetings, BOMCA supports the exchange of trainers between BG and Customs training institutions. A pilot exchange was conducted in Dushanbe between 29 May-1 June 2017, where trainers from the Customs training centers of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan facilitated a training of trainers for their Tajik colleagues on the issues of radiation control and dual-use goods. As a next step in the exchange of trainers’ experience, the Higher Military Customs Institute of the Republic of Uzbekistan showcased best practices in X-ray image analysis by hosting a regional training for trainers for Customs officers from Central Asia on 13-15 June, 2017. In 2018, the exchange of trainers is successfully continued by Kazakhstan - on February 13-15 trainers from the Border Guard Academy of Kazakhstan conducted a workshop to exchange experiences on travellers identification and profiling. As a result, 15 teachers from the BG Training Center and Military Institute were trained, thus contributing to an increased harmonisation of the teaching practices in the region.