Alumnus Story of Mr Elvin MEJIDOV - August 2024

My name is Elvin Mejidov and I am currently in charge of the International Cooperation and Projects at the Academy of the State Customs Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan (ASCCA), which is both a public higher education institution, as well as the Customs officers training institution, operating various academic degree programmes and Customs human resources training and development courses, also as the Regional Training Centre of the World Customs Organization.

 My key portfolio initiatives include the creation and implementation of international cooperation strategies, initiating and promoting bilateral and global partnerships, as well as the development and management of international projects, spanning the academic, non-academic, capacity building and development cooperation areas The sustainability, green mindset and ICTs bear a special importance in all my activities.

As of July 2024, I’m the first and only Customs Service officer with the credential “Certified Green Project Manager” granted by the renowned international company “GPM Global” situated in the USA. In the domain of ICTs, my major achievement has been the project titled “Customs Information and Communication Technologies Enhancement for Azerbaijan” project (2022-2024) that I wrote in 2020 under the CIAT programme call of the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), and which was then selected and funded by the Korean Government and implemented by KOICA.

The EU has many important connections to my work. I am proud to have led the ASCCA's three higher education capacity building project partnerships with Erasmus+ since January 2020. Additionally, I successfully initiated the capacity building/training partnership of ASCCA with the EU Agency for Law Enforcement Training (CEPOL), through the EU-funded Training and Operational Partnership against Organized Crime (TOPCOP) project (which is the first-ever cooperation between the Customs Service of Azerbaijan and CEPOL). Furthermore, I also initiated the Customs capacity building partnership in the EU-funded "EU4 Monitoring Drugs II" project, currently implemented by the EU Drugs Agency.

 I participated in the European Union Visitors Programme (EUVP) virtually in May 2021, before participating in-person in July 2022. Both experiences were truly great milestones in my professional development. I cherished the connections which I made, and all of the conversations which I had are still very much present in my mind. Overall, I connected with more than 45 people through the EUVP. These were mainly EU officials who worked in places such as the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Training (CEPOL), the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union (DG TAXUD), and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (FRONTEX), European Training Foundation to name but a few of the various entities of the EU which I had meetings with. The meeting with CEPOL was particularly relevant to my work as I proudly served as the Customs Capacity Building Point of Contact for the first-ever cooperation between them and the ASCCA when the CEPOL-led EU-funded “TOPCOP” project was successfully established in 2021.

Since completing my EUVP experiences, I have been fortunate to leverage the knowledge and inspiration gained during the EUVP in several significant ways.

In August 2022, I was thrilled that the project proposal which I had submitted to the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) in February of the same year was selected as a Jean Monnet Module. I am now the coordinator of "Advancing the EU Studies at the Azerbaijan Customs Academy" (EURASCCA). In the framework of this project, I have been teaching the EU foreign policy, Eastern Partnership, European Neighbourhood Policy and EU-Azerbaijan relations, to the students at the ASCCA, and the project also involves three other newly introduced EU courses taught by other colleagues. The project aims to enhance the EU knowledge and skills of both the students and Customs officers.

In January 2023, I wrote Azerbaijan's first and only Erasmus Mundus Design Measures (EMDM) project proposal, which was successfully selected by the European Commission. I am currently coordinating this ambitious initiative, "Designing an Excellent MA in International Trade, Customs, Logistics and Supply Chain with the best European and International Standards" (Excellent MA ITCLSC), which involves experts from six countries (Azerbaijan, China, Korea, Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine). We are working to design the world's first joint, international master's program in these fields, incorporating both EU Customs Competency Framework and WCO PICARD standards for customs professionalism.

I believe that I have been making my best efforts to promote and strengthen relations between the EU and Azerbaijan through various EU cooperation and partnership initiatives and endeavours. For my wonderful EUVP experience, I am immensely grateful to Mr. Piotr Bartoszewicz-Malicki (the Head of the EUVP Unit), my Programme Organiser and the distinguished EUVP Team.