The role of weapon and ammunition management in preventing conflict and supporting security transiti

#Weapons and #ammunition management is a key component of conflict prevention and stabilization strategies. Eight States in Africa have conducted consultations on #WAM with @UNIDIR to develop a roadmap towards a comprehensive national framework:https://t.co/QqbVbg0phK pic.twitter.com/35MLRp1FXC — UN Geneva (@UNGeneva) August 15, 2019

Preliminary findings and key policy considerations Acknowledgements Support from UNIDIR core funders provides the foundation for all of the Institute’s activities. This project is supported by the Governments of Germany, Switzerland and Japan. The research team is grateful for the support provided by United Nations partners, including the United Nations Mine Action Service, the United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs—Security Council Affairs Division, the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations—Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Section, and individual field missions. The research team thanks UNIDIR’s Director, Renata Dwan, for her invaluable support in the production of this publication. This report was drafted by Savannah de Tessieres, and edited by Himayu Shiotani, with support from Brian Wood and Sebastian Wilkin. About UNIDIR The United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR)—an autonomous institute within the United Nations—conducts research on disarmament and security. UNIDIR is based in Geneva, Switzerland, the centre for bilateral and multilateral disarmament and non-proliferation negotiations, and home of the Conference on Disarmament. The Institute explores current issues pertaining to a variety of existing and future armaments, as well as global diplomacy and local tensions and conflicts. Working with researchers, diplomats, government officials, NGOs and other institutions since 1980, UNIDIR acts as a bridge between the research community and Governments. UNIDIR activities are funded by contributions from Governments and donor foundations. Note The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The views expressed in the publication are the sole responsibility of the individual authors. They do not necessary reflect the views or opinions of the United Nations, UNIDIR, its staff members or sponsors. http://www.unidir.org © UNIDIR 2019 Executive Summary This paper presents preliminary findings on the role of weapon and ammunition management (WAM) in preventing conflict and supporting security transitions. The paper highlights observations from a series of national assessments on WAM frameworks conducted by States in cooperation with UNIDIR, with particular lessons drawn from four countries in Africa—the Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, the Niger and Somalia. The objective of this paper is to promote knowledge on key issues and processes relevant to WAM in transitional settings, and to provide policy considerations for strengthening the role of WAM in preventing and managing conflicts and reducing armed violence. Supporting stabilization and preventing armed violence in countries in security transition • WAM is becoming a key component of conflict prevention and stabilization strategies, with many conflict-affected and post-conflict States in Africa increasingly implementing a range of WAM activities. Eight States in Africa have conducted national-level consultations on WAM in cooperation with UNIDIR with the view to developing a roadmap towards a comprehensive national WAM framework. • Development of national WAM roadmaps can support the establishment of a coherent and comprehensive system governing WAM, where evidence-based needs assessments would guide specific international support. National roadmaps on WAM can contribute to informing the development and review of regional strategies and action plans, such as the African Union’s Silencing the Guns initiative, through information exchange, the setting of common priorities, and the sharing of lessons learned. • WAM can contribute to reinforcing post-conflict recovery strategies through supporting the regulatory, operational and technical components of security sector reform (SSR), disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR), as well as enforcing the obligations and objectives of arms embargoes. Through strengthening national capacity for the governance of weapons and ammunition, WAM can help to enable States targeted by sanctions to move towards an incremental lifting of punitive measures against them and improve adequate control over the full lifecycle of weapons and ammunition. • Through mitigating the risks of diversions from national stockpiles, WAM measures can effectively disrupt one of the primary sources of supply of materiel for non-State armed groups and criminal networks, including terrorist groups. By limiting the availability of military materiel, WAM contributes to restricting the firepower of such armed groups, thereby potentially helping to de-escalate the conflict. • Although the practice of identifying and tracing illicit weapons and ammunition is a key aspect of an effective WAM framework, it is still a weak component of WAM in most African States affected by conflict and armed violence. Tracing should be encouraged as it can actively support national and regional early warning mechanisms by identifying and highlighting growing demand for weapons in specific areas, or among particular groups, thereby contributing to the prevention of armed violence and de-escalation of conflict. • WAM in non-mission contexts may pose several challenges for engaging international partners to provide assistance: there may be limited logistical frameworks on which to rely, less funding available, and no thorough technical field assessment to inform the design and identify entry points for programming. Further research is needed to support WAM programming design and operational support mechanisms in such settings. Improving WAM of national stockpiles • WAM capacity has improved most significantly in the post-conflict period in countries where United Nations peace operations have been deployed, due to the presence of technical support and mobilization of dedicated funds from a range of international partners. United Nations peace operations are increasingly mandated to conduct WAM activities in support of national stockpile governance, management of DDR materiel, and processing of weapons seized and captured during operations by United Nations troops. • Physical security and stockpile management (PSSM) for weapons and small arms ammunition is the most widely implemented WAM activity in all countries where national-level consultations were held. This reflects how PSSM is often viewed as the first, and the most common, measure to prevent diversions of weapons and ammunition. International partners in particular have supported PSSM because results are visible and relatively quick, compared to other WAM components. PSSM activities often have a strong buy-in from national forces, which see improvements in infrastructure and physical security of materiel as a priority in supporting their defence and security objectives. • Management and destruction of larger calibre explosive ammunition remain a challenge in most environments where security forces lack the resources and technical capacity to process hazardous obsolete or surplus ammunition. In the past 15 years, a large number of States in Africa have suffered fatal unplanned explosions at munitions sites, which as a result triggered increased interest from national authorities in improving their management processes and capacity to handle explosive ammunition. • To date, PSSM and record-keeping measures have focused primarily on the facilities of the main security forces. Capacity at field-level to conduct PSSM remains low, particularly in areas of military operations. Slowly, however, national authorities are starting to prioritize areas where terrorist groups are known to operate in order to deter ‘quick win’ terror attacks and provide greater protection to the security forces. • PSSM activities, however, are often implemented separately from other essential WAM components—such as transfer controls, marking and record-keeping, as well as tracing— which are often neglected or under-developed. Effective WAM frameworks should situate PSSM within a wider lifecycle management framework. The development of a WAM roadmap would go some way towards supporting a comprehensive approach. Managing weapons and ammunition in territories not under complete control of the State • WAM efforts in countries where national-level consultations were held focus almost exclusively on national stockpiles. There is a crucial lack of regulatory frameworks and procedures regarding materiel retrieved through DDR and other weapons collection activities, as well as that captured during military operations, fuelling the risk of diversion and misuse of materiel. • The impact of civilian disarmament and weapons collection efforts remains very limited in increasingly complex operational contexts where peace agreements are not comprehensive and significant challenges exist for the State to provide security across its territory. In order to prevent interpersonal (including gender-based) armed violence, as well as communal and intercommunal armed violence, there is therefore a shift towards supporting civilians and other non-State actors in managing their own weapons and introducing controls rather than trying to remove them prematurely. • Tracing can support the judicial process by providing the evidence upon which illicit traffickers and violence perpetrators can be convicted, thereby helping to address impunity. However, the consultations indicated that most African law enforcement agencies tend to regard the capture of illicit weapons as an end in itself, rather than a step in the investigative process and thus do not have procedures in place to process illicit materiel. Nevertheless, the recent resurgence of terrorist attacks in West Africa has contributed to boosting the security leadership’s interest in the effective tracing of firearms and ammunition