On 23 June, IOM Georgia has launched a cascade training course in interview skills for the border control officers of the Patrol Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of Georgia. The trainings will be held in Tbilisi, Batumi and Kutaisi to train the staff from all three international airports, as well as Batumi sea port and Sarpi border crossing point. IOM has invited two experts from Greece and Slovenia to share their experience about interview techniques, verbal and non-verbal communication and profiling.

Mr. Massimo Ranamzin – Senior IBM Programme Manager of IOM Mission to Georgia, Ms. Evija Kotan, Deputy Head of the Political, Press and Information Section of the EU Delegation to Georgia and Mr. Guram Davitashvili – Deputy Director of MIA Patrol Police Department officially welcomed the training course participants.

After the cascade trainings, IOM aims to provide training modules and necessary supporting materials to the MIA Academy to institutionalize interview skills training and integrate it into the general curricula.

This activity is part of the IOM project – “Support to Integrated Border Management in Georgia”, implemented under the EU4 Security, Accountability and Fight against Crime in Georgia (SAFE) Programme. The project follows up on comprehensive EU support in the last 10 years, dedicated to strengthening Georgia’s immigration and border management capabilities, to cement compliance with relevant EU-Georgia Agreements and the visa liberalisation benchmarks.