Africa

National control systems
UNREC undertakes a number of activities in the area of arms control. These relate to three main areas:

1. Training for defense and security forces on SALW control, including transfer controls, stockpile management, weapons collection, identifying arms for tracing, border controls, and criminal investigations;
2. Baseline studies on key arms control concerns and questions, including arms trafficking patterns, compliance with treaties, presence of armed violence, and civilian possession; and
3. Support for establishing regional, sub-regional, and multi or bilateral agreements…

UNREC assists Member States in the development of national arms control strategies and tracing capabilities and helps to strengthen stockpile management. For example, in countries where multiple government departments and agencies are engaged in arms transfer controls, UNREC helps states to identify clear processes for arms transfer decisions and assists in the establishment of a comprehensive national control system to meet the obligations under Article 5 of the ATT and other relevant international and regional instruments. In addition, UNREC conducts training to strengthen the capacities of national authorities in the development and implementation of national control legislation and systems.

Legislative Assistance
UNREC provides Member States with legal support to implement regional and international arms control instruments. For example, UNREC has engaged in drafting legislation and strengthening the capacity of national commissions and national focal points on small arms, including in Mali, Madagascar, Burkina Faso and Zambia.⁶⁵

Diversion prevention
UNREC also provides extensive support to states seeking to strengthen their control systems to prevent diversion. For example, as part of the Regional Support Project to the Counter Terrorism Task Force (CTITF), UNREC organized two workshops – in Chad and Nigeria – to support the process of marking arms in order prevent diversion to terrorist groups.⁶⁶ Similarly, UNREC implemented the “Physical Security and Stockpile Management project in the Sahel,” which aimed to contribute to the security and stability in the sub-region by providing assistance to targeted States in preventing the diversion of, and the illicit trafficking in, governmentowned SALW and ammunition.⁶⁷

Gender and Gender-based Violence
Recently, UNREC has begun integrated gender considerations in the training of national authorities related to small arms controls. For example, UNREC organized trainings on the integration of gender-responsive measures in the control of SALW in DRC⁶⁸, CAR⁶⁹, Mali⁷⁰ and Cameroon.⁷¹

National control systems
Even before the adoption of the Silencing the Guns Initiative, the African Union prioritized the development of and strengthening arms control systems in the region. For example, in 2012, the Fifth AU-Regions Steering Committee on SALW discussed the importance of strengthening the national legal frameworks to control possession of SALW and identified the need for a strong coordination in interdiction and seizure in the fight
against illicit SALW. From discussions during the Second and Third AU-Regions Steering Committee on SALW and DDR, transfer controls featured as a central theme.⁸⁴
Practical efforts to implement these transfer control priorities included training courses on identification and tracing of SALW and their ammunition for ECCAS Member States. These courses concluded with a recommendation to build capacity in support of ATT implementation,⁸⁵ address physical security and stockpile management in Niger, and to hold expert meetings to improve the coordination of SALW/PSSM initiatives across the Greater Sahel region.⁸⁶

Legislative Assistance
Activities focused on strengthening national legislative capacity and ensuring the harmonization with SALW instruments are a key element of the African Union’s efforts to ensure adequate controls of SALW. For example, the AU Commission organized a number of national policy dialogues and workshops to support governments in the development of legislation and capacity in the field of arms control, particularly as part of a multi-year AU-EU project entitled “The Fight against the Illicit Accumulation and Trafficking of Firearms in Africa’ (2010-2013). These efforts resulted in the establishment of National Commissions on SALW in the Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Chad and Cameroon;, the development of National Action Plans on SALW in the Republic of Congo, DRC and Malawi; as well as strengthened legislative capacity to harmonize SALW instruments in Zambia, Tanzania and Kenya.⁸⁷ Similar efforts were undertaken in the framework of the Arms Control in Africa project, which started in 2021 and is implemented in cooperation with BICC and funding support from Germany.

Diversion prevention
As part of the efforts to implement the AU Strategy on the Control of Illicit Proliferation, Circulation and Trafficking of SALW, the AU has organized workshops as well as national and regional programs aimed at curbing illegal weapons trafficking in Africa. In 2016, the Seventh AU-Regions Steering Committee on SALW and DDR held in Djibouti took stock of activities carried out to assist Member States in the fight against illicit SALW and discussed identified priorities for future work.⁸⁸ Similarly, the AU Ammunition Safety and Security Management Initiative, launched in 2017, assisted a number of States, including Guinea Bissau and Malawi, with preventing the diversion of government-held stockpiles through strengthening arms and ammunition management.

National control systems
Given the strong synergies and complementarities between the two instruments, efforts carried out by the ECOWAS Commission to implement the Convention contribute directly to the implementation of the ATT.
Regional and national trainings on PSSM,⁹⁶ record-keeping and reporting are contributing to states’ capacity to implement key ATT provisions.
For example, the 2019 “Supporting implementation of ECOWAS SALW Convention Article 10” project aimed to establish an Arms Transfer Database to assist Member States to:

1. Track all SALW and ammunition transfers in and out of ECOWAS countries;
2. Detect points of diversion; and
3. Improve decision-making processes at sub-regional levels.⁹⁷

These efforts could also serve states in meeting their ATT annual reporting obligations and strengthen their capacity to prevent diversion (Article 11). While, at the time of this publication, the ECOWAS Arms Transfer Database has not yet been established, with support from the EU, a a series of regional capacity-building workshops focused on encouraging the submission of reports on PoA implementation resulted in an increase in the number of national reports.⁹⁸

Diversion prevention
With small arms diversion and illicit trafficking as two key challenges in the ECOWAS region, these issues remain at the forefront of many of the initiatives undertaken by the ECOWAS Commission. For example, in 2018 the ECOWAS Commission, in collaboration with Conflict Armament Research (CAR), supported arms control authorities in Nigeria and Burkina Faso to strengthen their national control systems in order to more effectively identify sources and diversion points of illicit SALW. In particular, the training assisted government officials to develop systems to:

1) document seized, found or surrendered weapons and ammunition in accordance with common standards;

2) utilize international tracing mechanisms, including the ECOWAS Convention Article 19 tracing  mechanism; and

3) identify sources and points of diversion of illicit SALW. The tools, templates and standard operating procedures developed by the project will be made available in English and French for potential adoption by other ECOWAS Member States.⁹⁹

National control systems
The 47th Ministerial Meeting of the United Nations Standing Advisory Committee on Security Questions in Central Africa (UNSAC), held in 2018, addressed SALW controls, cross-border controls, maritime piracy, the activities of terrorist groups in the subregion and transnational organised crime. It also reviewed advances in the implementation of international, regional and sub-regional instruments.¹⁰² In the margins of this meeting, ECCAS, in partnership with UNREC and UNOCA launched a joint project to build the capacity of eleven Central African States on the implementation of the Kinshasa Convention.¹⁰³ Subsequently, with support from the EUfunded Pan-Africa Project, ECCAS and RECSA held joint seminars to support regional police organizations and national law enforcement agencies in their efforts to prevent the proliferation of firearms and explosive materials in Africa.¹⁰⁴

Legislative Assistance

UNREC and ECCAS also organized, in 2019, a sub-regional Legal Assistance Workshop for States Parties To the Kinshasa Convention.¹⁰⁵

National control systems
The organization assists states in the region in their efforts to strengthen arms transfer controls and prevent diversion, including through marking of arms, development of guidelines on standards and elements for enduser documentation, electronic record-keeping, establishing SALW national focal points and national commissions, developing SALW NAPs and drafting national legislation.¹¹⁴ Similarly, RECSA also provides capacity building workshops and trainings to strengthening SALW- related regulations,¹¹⁵ improve identification and tracing of SALW, as well as weapon and ammunition management. One important result has been the provision by RECSA of marking machines to all its Member States, which enabled states, including Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi to make sustained progress towards marking their SALW.¹¹⁵
It has also developed resources to support states seeking to implement the Nairobi Protocol. For example, the Best Practice Guidelines and Minimum Common Standards on the Implementation of the Nairobi Declaration and the Nairobi Protocol, approved in 2005 by the Third Ministerial Review Conference held in Nairobi seeks to assist Member States in the implementation and harmonization of national legislations on firearms. The aim of the guidelines is to elaborate a framework for the development of policy, review of national legislation, general operational guidelines and procedures on all aspects of SALW required by the Nairobi Protocol. The Best Practice Guidelines cover SALW stockpile management, record-keeping, marking, collection disposal, import, export, transit and transhipment of arms, tracing and brokering.¹¹⁶ With regard to transfer controls, the Guidelines provide additional information on the licensing requirements set out in Article 10 of the Nairobi Protocol, which requires states to establish and maintain an effective system of export, import and transit licensing or authorisation for the transfer of SALW.¹¹⁷ In addition, the Guidelines include information on the prevention of diversion.

Legislative Assistance
The harmonization of national firearms legislation with related international and regional instruments is another important area of work for RECSA. From development of resources on harmonization of legislation¹¹⁸ to national legal assessment workshops and capacity building assistance to strengthen national legislation,¹¹⁹ RECSA works to assist states in meeting their legislative obligations under regional and international instruments, including the ATT.

Diversion Prevention
A number of its initiatives, including strengthening PSSM¹²⁰ or the collection and destruction of SALW, ammunition and parts and components, aim to build states’ capacity and facilitate coordination to prevent the illicit trafficking and diversion of arms. For example, in partnership with BICC and SARCOM, a “Cross-Border Cooperation Workshop” was conducted in 2018 in Khartoum, Sudan that explored challenges and threats linked to illicit trafficking of small arms, including diversion, and identified best practices and opportunities to increase joint border law enforcement cooperation within the region.¹²¹ RECSA was also tasked with developing further guidelines, methodologies and other tools such as “red flag’ early warning indicators and a list of locations where diversion and misuse has proven to be a problem in the past.¹²²

Gender and Gender-based Violence
In 2009, RECSA adopted its first Gender Policy in line with international, regional and national instruments that strive to ensure gender equality and equal participation. The policy seeks to assist RECSA in ensuring genderbalanced representation at all stages of design, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of SALW programmes. Since then, mainstreaming gender has become one of the four pillars of RECSA’s overall strategy, with a specific objective to “enhance participation and involvement of women, girls and other special interest groups in SALW interventions in the region.”¹²³ RECSA has also undertaken work to assist states in the region, including to integrate gender considerations into SALW national action plans.¹²⁴

Diversion Prevention
As part of its efforts to strengthen regional peace and security, EAC has developed a number of activities and efforts, including a Small Arms and Light Weapons Management Program to strengthen states capacity to prevent illicit trafficking and diversion of arms and ammunition. In particular, EAC efforts to curb the proliferation of SALW have been boosted with the establishment of an experts group to develop a regional arms management policy that will inform the legislation harmonization process deemed critical to collective approach to dealing with SALW.¹³⁰

The EAC, in partnership with, IGAD, COMESA and IOC, has commenced the implementation of the Regional Conflict Prevention Management and Resolution Program, which includes a SALW component that provides support for National Focal Points in the implementation of national activities.¹³¹ This assistance includes trainings and field exercises for regional armed forces to strengthen their ability to address regional security challenges, including the proliferation of small arms and light weapons, terrorism and insecurity.¹³² As part of the same Program, and in cooperation with the UN Regional Centre on Small Arms (UNREC), ECA has also ensured the procurement of marking equipment for all Focal Points to facilitate remarking of SALW.¹³³

In 2021, EAC put in place a partnership framework with RECSA to facilitate cooperation on matters of peace and security in the region, compliance with peace and security instruments and the establishment of information sharing mechanisms on cross-border threats. This partnership facilitated programmes focused on addressing the illicit small arms and light weapons.¹³⁴

Diversion Prevention
IGAD-SSP provides training and capacity building for Member States on strengthening border security and preventing the illicit trafficking and diversion of arms. IGAD-SSP also provides training for the implementation of the IGAD Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) and Extradition Conventions. These Conventions seek to assist states in the region to effectively counter terrorism and transnational crime by improving legal cooperation among related law enforcement institutions in the region.

In 2002, IGAD established the Conflict Early Warning and Response Mechanism (CEWARN) to strengthen regional stability and prevent conflict. CEWARN’s mandate focuses on collecting and providing credible, evidence-based early warning information and analysis to inform timely action to prevent or mitigate violent conflict. CEWARN’s efforts have centered on preventing cross-border pastoralist conflicts fuelled by the proliferation of small arms and supporting local community-led early warning systems, including by monitoring and tracking arms proliferation and trafficking, including in South Sudan and Kenya.¹³⁸

Gender and Gender-based Violence
The SADC Regional Strategy and Framework of Action for Addressing GBV (2018 -2030), adopted in July 2018, seeks to encourage and assist Member States to implement and monitor the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development and to make progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 5 (gender equality). If implemented effectively, key strategic actions of the SADC Regional Strategy and Framework of Action for Addressing GBV, including the improvement of the collection, harmonization and use of administrative data (…) on incidents of GBV and dissemination of reliable and comparable GBV data and statistics, can contribute to the gender-related commitments made by ATT States Parties at the Fifth Conference of States Parties to the ATT.¹⁴⁵ Also relevant to ATT States Parties in their application of the risk assessment set out in Articles 6 and 7 is the Regional Inventory of Sexual and Gender-based Violence Legislation, which is currently being developed by the SADC Secretariat.¹⁴⁶