As part of the ‘Community of Practitioners meetings’ project, this regional workshop on the ‘Exchange of good practices and experience in combatting illicit arms trafficking and its links to Terrorism and Organized Crime, was organized by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Global Firearms Programme (GFP) in Algiers, Algeria on 5-7 December, 2017. The event was the first of a series of UNODC GFP ‘Community of Practitioners meetings’ and funding was provided by the Government of Germany. The workshop was attended by practitioners from Algeria, Chad, Mali, Morocco, Mauritania and Niger, as well as international and national experts, who presented and shared concrete cases and experiences in the investigation and prosecution of firearms related criminality. It provided an opportunity for participants to discuss the most common crimes involving the use or illicit trafficking in firearms, in particular their nexus with terrorism cases, to illustrate some of the most recent investigative approaches with regard to the origins, modalities and lines of supply of weapons to terrorists (deactivated arms, trafficking through the internet, converted weapons and use of parcel services of parts and components inter alia). The participants also considered practical measures needed to prevent weapons theft, trafficking and diversion into the hands of terrorist and criminal groups: strengthening legislative regimes on firearms, establishing standard operating procedures for the identification, registration and tracing of seized, found or surrendered weapons and the relevance of specialised hubs to support criminal (parallel) investigations into possible trafficking offenses.