Customs and border protection officers constitute the front line of every country's defense against trans-boundary illegal trade.
In a recently held workshop organized by UN Environment in West Africa, over 40 customs and enforcement officers from environmental protection agencies in the Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone were updated on trade-related aspects of several Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs), as well as the related work of The International Criminal Police Organization and the World Customs Organization.
Through the Green Customs Initiative, UN Environment enhances the capacity of customs and other relevant enforcement personnel to monitor and facilitate legal trade, and to detect and prevent illegal trade in the environmentally-sensitive commodities covered by the relevant conventions and MEAs. This further allows custom officers to develop common tools and programs to promote rapid and effective control mechanisms on illegal trade in environmentally regulated substances at the national and regional levels.
Customs and border protection officers constitute the front line of every country's defense against trans-boundary illegal trade. They are the first link in the “compliance and enforcement chain”, and without adequate capacity to prevent or detect illegal trade, the rest of the chain will be considerably less effective; enhancing awareness and building the capacity of these officers is therefore, vital.
Through this workshop, participants acquired knowledge that they can apply and share within their agencies, to promote monitoring and facilitation of legal trade of environmentally sensitive commodities.
For more information, please contact Yannis.Derbali@un.org
