Timeframe: February 2026 – May 2029
Budget: EUR 12 million, with EUR 2 million for INTERPOL activities in Phase 11
Donor: European Union
Project partners: International Centre for Migration Policy and Development (ICMPD), Central Finance and Contracting Agency (CFCA) of the Republic of Latvia, CIVIPOL, and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
The situation
Border regions in Central Asia face security, socio-economic and institutional challenges affecting both national and regional development. These challenges leave the region exposed to a range of cross-border criminal activities, such as smuggling, human trafficking, drug trafficking and the movement of illicit goods.
As border security represents one of the key elements for stability in the region, the European Union developed the Border Management Programme in Central Asia (BOMCA). Since its launch in 2003, the project has focused on strengthening Central Asian border agencies, facilitating trade, improving border management systems and combating drug trafficking across the region.
Project scope
The 11th phase of BOMCA is designed to build upon and consolidate the results achieved during the preceding phases. This involves further advancing cross-border cooperation, tackling organised crime and improving living conditions for populations living in the border regions of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
The project will apply an integrated border management approach, as well as gender-balanced and human-rights centred principles.
Project BOMCA 11 has 3 main objectives:
• Develop and strengthen institutional capacities of border control agencies in achieving international standards and best practices to ensure national, regional and global security;
• Facilitate the cooperation between law enforcement and border control agencies and support law enforcement agencies and evidence-based investigations, specifically in dealing with detection and investigation of cross-border crime;
• Improve the cross-border cooperation between Central Asian border communities through support to local economic development and tackling common challenges, with a focus on human rights, gender equality and groups in vulnerable situations.
Project activities
• Facilitate multiagency discussions between National Central Bureaus (NCBs) and local law enforcement agencies through engagement missions;
• Ensure the procurement, installation or extension of INTERPOL I-24/7 database access;
• Elaborate a strategic border vulnerability assessment;
• Deliver capacity building workshops on INTERPOL’s detection capabilities;
• Conduct regional training on border vulnerability assessment methodology;
• Carry out a regional border management operation.
To learn more on how Project BOMCA 11 is advancing border management and regional security in Central Asia, see: bomca-eu.org
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