21 November 2017

This week, 600 newly recruited Ukrainian border guards officially started their service at Boryspil airport, Kyiv Central Railway Station and the Krakovets border-crossing point on the Ukrainian-Polish border. The new border guards were recruited under the New Face of the Border project implemented by the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine (SBGS), with support from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Mission in Ukraine, and the U.S. Department of State.

“Today we mark an important milestone for the Ukrainian State Border Guard Service, as IOM is honoured to contribute to the establishment of a new transparent recruitment system that allows young professionals, with a good command of English and highest ethical and technical standards, to join the State Border Service through a transparent recruitment system,” said IOM Ukraine Chief of Mission, Dr. Thomas Lothar Weiss. “The new recruitment system represents a critical piece of the Service’s anti-corruption efforts. IOM Ukraine stands ready to further support SBGS' reforms aiming at strengthening its role as a modern and efficient law enforcement agency.”

Under the project, the IOM Mission in Ukraine designed and implemented a new recruitment system for the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine to select and hire border guards through an objective, transparent and impartial process. Out of more than 2,550 applicants, over 1,500 were young civilians and another nearly 1,000 were currently or previously serving border guards. The new recruits received intensive training, organized with the support of IOM and the U.S. Department of State.

The project will continue through the coming year and will expand to introduce similar recruitment processes in view of staffing the border crossing points in the airports of Lviv, Odesa, Dnipro, and Kharkiv, as well as at the Ukrainian-Poland border (Yagodyn, Shehyni and Rava-Ruska).

IOM provides assistance to the Ukrainian Government in developing a comprehensive migration and border management system by enhancing its institutional, organizational, operational and human resource capacities. This includes supporting the State Border Guard Service, the State Migration Service, as well as other national authorities dealing with migration and border management.