Humanitarian border management training in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)

Kisangani, DRC

From 25 November to 4 December 2014, the ACBC facilitated Training-of-Trainers on humanitarian border management (HBM) in Kisangani, the capital of Province Orientale of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).  DRC is the first country in Africa to pilot the HBM capacity building model developed by IOM.

HBM addresses border management operations before, during and after humanitarian crises which trigger cross-border migration of affected populations. Therefore, the HBM concept encompasses both preparedness, as well as response of border agencies, such as immigration and border police, to mass influx of persons fleeing natural or man-made disasters.

The Training-of-Trainers package for DRC was designed based on an HBM assessment which the ACBC carried out in September 2014 in the border regions between DRC, South Sudan and Uganda. The training encompassed an introduction to relevant international migration legal frameworks, techniques for interviewing vulnerable migrants, biometric registration of displaced populations, search and rescue, camp security, migration health, as well as elaboration of humanitarian response plans.

Participants in the pilot Training-of-Trainers included representatives of DRC immigration, border police, border health and quarantine service, customs, as well as representatives of the provincial government. Through presentations, group work, case studies and roles plays, border officials had the opportunity to learn not only theory but also practice their new skills on specific scenarios, themselves based on concrete migration crises that took place in Province Orientale in the past and which were researched during the HBM assessment.