Reducing Illicit Arms and Ammunition Trafficking: Moving towards a Safer Latin America without the Fear of Armed Violence

28/11/2020

29/11/2020

Activity description

On 28-29 November of 2019, the Arias Foundation, in cooperation with UNLIREC, held a sub-regional meeting in Costa Rica. During the meeting, participants from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Peru, shared national information regarding armed violence, arms and ammunition controls, and illicit arms trafficking. A follow-up workshop, similar to the one that took place in November, has been postponed due to Covid-19 related travel and meetings restrictions.

As part of this project, the Arias Foundation has also designed an online course for national authorities working on firearms and related international instruments, in an effort to streamline regional understanding of arms trafficking and the use of international instruments, particularly the ATT. Two more courses – one on armed violence and arms trafficking and the other on the classification of arms and ammunition – were designed for government authorities dealing with national control systems. These two courses were scheduled to take place in March of 2020, however, due to the emergency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, they will be held virtually.

Project description

The ’Reducing Illicit Arms and Ammunition Trafficking: Moving towards a Safer Latin America without the Fear of Armed Violence’ project (running from April to December 2020), implemented by Arias Foundation with the financial support of Germany, aims to strengthen ammunition and small arms and light weapons (SALW) controls among both government and civil society organizations with the goal of improving arms transfers and reducing illicit trafficking, particularly in border areas. The Arias Foundation will work to ameliorate the adverse impacts of armed violence in Latin American society through the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. In addition, the project promotes the exchange of information and best practices on arms transfer controls through South-South cooperation. Lastly, the project addresses illicit trafficking, especially of ammunition, through the implementation of multinational and inter-sectorial mechanisms on a sub-regional level.