- Events
Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Office of Counter-Terrorism (Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵOCT) facilitated the visit of a high-level delegation of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), led by Comptroller-General Mr. Samuel Basintale Amadu, to the Italian National Police (Polizia di Stato) in Rome on 12¨C13 May 2026.
The visit, hosted by the Central Directorate for the Anti-Terrorism Police (DCPP), aimed to strengthen the operational, tactical, and institutional capacity of GIS to prevent, detect, and respond to terrorist threats along Ghana's northern borders, to share good practices in tactical border security and counter-terrorism operations, and to ensure coherence with Ghana's Joint Baseline Assessment findings and the broader Sahel¨Ccoastal security dynamics under the Accra Initiative.
Dr. Andrea Maria Palamidessi, Head of Office at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Italy, welcomed the delegation and reaffirmed Italy's continued support for GIS, Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵOCT, and the joint initiative on border security and counter-terrorism.
The delegation visited DCCP headquarters to exchange on the evolving threat of terrorism in West Africa and to discuss the joint implementation of the Trainer-of-Trainers (ToT) curriculum developed under the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵOCT Global Programme on Border Security and Management. A dedicated technical session focused on operational maritime border security inter-agency practices.
The delegation also visited the Spinaceto Multifunctional training center (Centro Polifunzionale di Spinaceto) at the headquarters of the Central Security Operation Unit (NOCS), the counter-terrorism and special operations unit of the Italian Polizia di Stato. The visit included demonstrations of counter-terrorism protocols and advanced surveillance techniques, offering first-hand exposure to operational standards that can inform future training and institutional development at the Immigration Tactical Training School (ITTraS) in Ghana.
The discussions held during the visit laid the groundwork for Phase II of the joint initiative (December 2026 ¨C November 2027), which will focus on the nationwide replication of tactical border-security training through the GIS Trainer-of-Trainers network, the strengthening of regional cooperation under the Integrated Border Stability Mechanism (IBSM) for West Africa, and the consolidation of institutional sustainability mechanisms within ITTraS.
The visit contributed to the implementation of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and Security Council resolutions 2178 (2014), 2396 (2017), and 2482 (2019), which call on Member States to strengthen border management and information-sharing to prevent the cross-border movement of terrorists while upholding international law, including human rights law and refugee law.
