The first joint training centre for border management was inaugurated on Tuesday at the National Guard Commando Training School in Oued Zerga in the Beja governorate. The centre is part of the pound 8.8 million Support Programme for the Government of Tunisia in the field of Integrated Border Management, funded by Austria, Germany and the Netherlands and implemented by the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) over the period 2020-2024. This is a pilot regional training centre that will promote better coordination between the three bodies, namely the police, the national guard and customs, in terms of border protection, the fight against human trafficking, smuggling, parallel trade and all crimes through digital mechanisms, an intelligent portal and modern equipment, said Minister of Public Works and Housing, Sarra Zaafrani Zenzri. Representatives from Arab and African countries will also be able to benefit from the centre's services, she added. For his part, Colonel Houssem Jebabl i, spokesman for the General Directorate of the National Guard, stressed that this will be a centre for training and joint work based on common training policies and software related to border security. The centre has begun training its first class in cooperation with the ICMPD, he said. Souha Badr, director of the Integrated Border Management Project at the International Centre for Migration Policy Development, said in a statement to TAP that the centre, the first of its kind in Tunisia and Africa, will train the three security corps in the field of integrated administrative border management. She stressed that the centre, which will be internationally accredited and recognised, will be a regional entity that will transfer knowledge to a number of countries such as Algeria, Libya and other African countries. She added that the centre would be able to rationalise training and strengthen coordination between the three security services, pointing out that the statistics on the reduction of illegal migration were significant and that the Tunisian state's efforts in this area were colossal and would be strengthened by joint training. Source: EN - Agence Tunis Afrique Presse