OSCE-led Mobile Training Team marks year one of deployments achieving local ownership milestone in Albania

The OSCE-led Mobile Training Team (MTT), a group of 24 border security and counter-terrorism experts from across the OSCE region, met for the second Annual Review Meeting from 11 to 13 November in Tirana, Albania. This was followed by a training workshop for the Albanian Border and Migration Police and Security Training Academy on 14 and 15 November.

Organized by the OSCE Transnational Threats Department, 16 MTT members from 14 OSCE participating States and Mediterranean Partners for Co-operation, as well as experts from Frontex, Interpol and UNOCT participated at the Annual Review Meeting which provided a platform to assess and evaluate the capacity building training courses delivered throughout 2024, as well as to hold strategic discussions and planning for 2025.

Following the Annual Review Meeting, a two-day training-of-trainers and mentoring course was organized for the Albanian Border and Migration Police and faculty members of the Albanian Security Academy in close co-operation with the OSCE Presence in Albania.

The course focused on Behavioural Analysis and Interviewing Techniques, and was a follow up of the MTT pilot course conducted in 2023 in Albania. Based on a request from the Albanian State Police, this training served to conclude the mentoring work aimed at integrating specific interviewing techniques taught by the OSCE-led MTT into the national training curriculum for border police. This initiative enhances local ownership of the OSCE-led MTT training content since the OSCE course will be included as part of the national curricula in the Security Academy and as such contributes to sustainable knowledge transfer within the national services. Moreover, the initiative ensures sustainability of the OSCE and donors’ efforts in further strengthening border security and management.

These activities are implemented as part of the extrabudgetary project “Training and Deployment of OSCE Mobile Training Team to Better Address Challenges in Identifying the Cross-Border Movement of Foreign Terrorist Fighters and Other Cross-Border Crimes in the OSCE Area–Phase II”, funded by the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States of America. More information about the project is available here.