By Samuel Ayammah
With funding support from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the International Organisation for Migration is implementing a project dubbed “Data Collection Survey on enhancing border facilitation and strengthening border public health capacity in West Africa, in response to infectious diseases such as Covid-19.
The project aims to strengthen overall border management capacities in West Africa through an enhanced understanding of migratory flows in the health context.
This was made known at the dissemination workshop on key findings in Accra.
The project seeks to facilitate commercial exchanges and strengthen operational and material capacities of governments in responding to potential infectious diseases at entry points.
The survey findings are expected to serve as a baseline regarding the current situation at the points of entry at Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Togo, Ghana and Burkina Faso. The three thematic areas of the project are trade facilitation, Public health and Immigration.
Senior Programme Manager at IOM, Nnamdi Iwuora, said the results from the survey will enable IOM, JICA and the affected governments to have a common understanding of the health crisis and its implication on thematic areas.
The Director of Port Health at the Kotoka International Airport, Dr. Lawrence Lartey, described the data collection survey by IOM and its partners as timely.
The Chief Representative of JICA, Araki Yasumichi, said to deal with the COVID-19 impact on land borders and trade among neighboring countries in West Africa, JICA signed an agreement with IOM in August 2021 to strengthen the border management capacities in five countries. As part of its implementation, the data collection survey was necessary to provide the
basis and empirical evidence for targeted future interventions. The objective of the meeting was to share findings on the data survey carried out at the points of entry in Paga, Elubo and Aflao with national authorities and to also make recommendations on how the gaps identified during the survey can be bridged for effective border management.
