Proliferation Of Small Arms And Light Weapons In West Africa Implications For Subregional Security

The West African subregion is host to strings of violent armed conflicts. These conflicts result in enormous human tragedy and account for the economic and societal deprivation that continues to plague the subregion while also stifling its development. A number of factors account for the violence that afflicts the region, spreading across national boundaries with different political situations. This study examines the role played by small arms and light weapons in not only exacerbating these conflicts but also perpetuating the prevailing climate of insecurity in the West Africa Subregion.

The fight against the proliferation of small arms and light weapons is one of the key priorities on the peace and security agenda of West African states. The effective control of the illicit circulation of weapons requires competent and accountable security forces, who are properly trained. This handbook, jointly published by PCASED, ECOWAS and UNIDIR, provides an appropriate framework for training.

This Discussion Paper provides insights into the challenges posed by the proliferation of small arms and light weapons in West Africa, paying particular attention to the ECOWAS convention on small arms and light weapons as a collective sub-regional response to a potent threat to peace, security and development. It connects global and regional discourses on illicit arms control and provides a balanced, empirical xamination of the performance of the convention. It is a useful contribution to debates on arms-proliferation control in Africa and provides well-informed recommendations of interest to scholars, peace activists, policy practitioners and strategists working on peace and security in Africa.

This handbook provides critical analyses of the theory and practices of small arms proliferation and its impact on conflicts and organized violence in Africa. It examines the terrains, institutions, factors and actors that drive armed conflict and arms proliferation, and further explores the nature, scope, and dynamics of conflicts across the continent, as well as the extent to which these conflicts are exacerbated by the proliferation of small arms. The volume features rich analyses by contributors who are acquainted with, and widely experienced in, the formal and informal structures of arms proliferation and control, and their repercussions on violence, instability and insecurity across Africa. The chapters dissect the challenges of small arms and light weapons in Africa with a view to understanding roots causes and drivers, and generating a fresh body of analyses that adds value to the existing conversation on conflict management and peacebuilding in Africa. With contributions from scholars, development practitioners, defence and security professionals and civil society activists, the handbook seeks to serve as a reference for students, researchers, and policy makers on small arms proliferation, control and regulation; defence and security practitioners; and those involved in countering violence and managing conflicts in Africa.

In Africa, the effect of the proliferation of small arms and light weapons (SALW) continues to impact negatively on socioeconomic development, particularly within the Great Lakes and Horn of Africa (GLHA) subregion. Since 2000, several initiatives on the matter have been developed. Foremost among the subregional and regional initiatives are the Nairobi and Bamako declarations on the "African Common Position on the Illicit Proliferation, Circulation and Trafficking of Small Arms and Light Weapons" in March and December 2000, respectively. This study seeks to examine the strategies that the GLHA countries are using to deal with the SALW problem with an emphasis on those of Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia. It also analyzes the challenges the subregional governments have encountered while tackling this menace, and the measures they have developed to mitigate them. It is clear that the strategies' ends and ways are sufficient to contain the problem but only require better coordination, integration, and synchronization into one main effort. The author concludes that the war on SALW will remain elusive unless all member states show the political will to address the factors of increased supply and demand of SALW and allocate more resources to achieve their strategic ends.

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2022 in the subject Organisation and administration - Public safety and order, grade: A, , course: Strategic Studies, language: English, abstract: This paper examined the effects of proliferation of small arms and light weapons on national security in Nigeria. It utilized secondary sources of data as well as employed the critical theory to explain the relationship between proliferation of small arms and light weapons and national security in Nigeria. The widespread demand, use and abuse of small arms and light weapons in Nigeria pose serious security and developmental challenges to the country. Some of the implications of this is that Government resources are diverted away from socio-economic and developmental projects to defense and security and human rights abuses which undermine human security are rife. For instance, Nigeria has spent over US$9billion since 2019 trying to curb insecurity this fund would have been channeled into education or health system to boost the welfare of the people.