Holding up development: The effects of small arms and light weapons in developing countries

With the first UN Biennial Meeting of States to discuss the UN's programme of action on small arms and light weapons taking place in New York between 7-11 July 2003, This id21 special feature considers some of the relationships between small arms misuse and development - and what the development community is, or isn't, doing about it.

Cheap, portable and readily available: every year more than half a million people are killed through the misuse of small arms such as handguns, assault rifles and grenades. Millions more are crippled. With poverty providing an ideal breeding ground for small arms proliferation, African countries are currently the worst hit by a global epidemic of armed violence that threatens the safety and wellbeing of people in developed and developing countries alike.

The human costs of small arms misuse have social and economic consequences too, further affecting the opportunities and productivity of poor communities further still. From Latin America and the Caribbean to sub-Saharan Africa, South and South East Asia, research has shown how scarce household resources are being devoted to the treatment and care of the victims of violence, as well as to informal and unregulated forms of security - such as para-militarism and vigilantism. Small arms misuse is also strongly associated with the increasing lethality of criminality, forced migration, the deterioration of investment and trade, as well as the obstruction of aid delivery and assistance. Both directly and indirectly then, small arms misuse undermines the quality and quantity of development in poor countries.

Just as poverty and violence are intertwined, so too must be their effective remedies. Research has shown that investments in improving public security - from the strengthening of community policing in Malawi to investments in better lighting and communications infrastructure in districts of Albania - are strongly correlated with reductions in violence and poverty. But the development community has not yet fully appreciated the wide-ranging effects of small arms. The issue is often treated as somebody else's problem, or seen as so big and complex that it cannot be amenable to a developmental response.

Fortunately, innovative and proactive approaches to small arms violence are emerging from the affected communities themselves. Research has revealed that Kosovo-Albanian and Serb communities, for example, are less attached to their weapons than commonly believed and that many civilians recognise the importance of reducing the number of arms in their community in order for trust to take hold and development to flourish. When Kosovans included in a research survey were recently asked whether they felt there were too many guns in society, only 21 per cent answered "no". Even more promisingly, 54 per cent said that, even if it were legal, they would not choose to own a gun.

Such findings challenge the popular assumption that once arms become embedded within a culture they cannot be removed. To the contrary, many communities eagerly participate in measures to reduce the threat of violence and the misuse of small arms. An NGO umbrella group, the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) has documented a vast array of community-led efforts that often escape the headlines: from anti-weapons campaigns in Rio de Janeiro to gun-free zones in Johannesburg. These efforts often involve collaboration between various different NGOs and civil society groups to document the extent of small arms possession, to stimulate a change of attitude towards guns, and to physically collect and destroy weapons. In 1999 for example, the Brazilian group Via Rio collected over one million signatures across Rio in favour of a ban on the sale and use of small arms. This was followed in 2000 with the collection of over eighteen thousand guns, and the destruction of a further 100, 000 in 2001 - the largest arms stockpile destroyed in the world in a single day.

What is needed now is more concentrated investment in these efforts from the international development community. Small arms control should no longer be confined to a narrow group of experts in the disarmament sector or conceived purely as a "soft" or low-priority security issue. Instead, it should be re-positioned as one of many central pillars of the security and development agendas of the international community and affected states.

Whilst international and national agencies have begun to recognise weapon trafficking and small arms control as development issues, converting noble aspirations into action presents a number of challenges. There are still some governments politically averse to viewing civilian arms possession as a problem. Perhaps the most striking example is the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which refers to 'the right of the people to keep and bear arms'.
A powerful section of US society views the Second Amendment as a key principle of justice, which theoretically protects them against tyrannical governments. A recent study by the Small Arms Survey found that there are almost enough firearms in the US to match one gun per person. Thus, when in 2001 a draft United Nations Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons (PoA) included measures to regulate civilian arms possession and limit trade in small arms and light weapons to civilians, the US promptly blocked it.

The consensually agreed programme decided instead to concentrate only on illicit trade in small arms and removed a reference to regulating sales to civilians. Signatory governments to the PoA committed themselves to measures such as the destruction of stocks of surplus weapons, the registration and tracing of gun ownership and re-export, and the disarmament, demobilisation and re-integration (DDR) of ex-combatants.

In July this year, delegates from governments, lobby groups and NGOs from around the world met again in New York to discuss how implementation of the programme had progressed during the last two years. NGOs played a key part in the proceedings, offering a critical assessment of the national, regional and global implementation of the PoA. In the report they presented to the conference, the IANSA criticised an observed lack of coordination and engagement across and between different government ministries, stakeholders and civil society groups in the implementation of the PoA. They drew attention to the "patchy and limited" international financial assistance for the implementation of the PoA in developing countries. In their recommendations to the conference, IANSA drew attention to the special role civil society groups can and do play in raising awareness of the need for the PoA, monitoring arms proliferation and mobilising action across all sectors of the community. Finally, they also called for greater regional cooperation on the Programme, particularly in North Africa, the Middle East, South and East Asia, and urged the development of mechanisms within the PoA to hold governments accountable for the misuse of small arms within their states.

Yet arguably the PoA - which is up for review in 2006 - will remain limited in its abilities to tackle the anti-developmental effects of small arm proliferation unless its remit is extended to deal also with the legal trade in small arms. Such trade accounts for an estimated eighty per cent of the total value of trade in small arms and light weapons. In the current political climate however, such an extension in the consensus appears impossible. Speaking during the July conference for example, US Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Lincoln Bloomfield indicated the US's unwillingness to change its stance towards the PoA when he stated that "we all have more than enough worthy work to do within the terms of the (illicit small arms and light weapons) mandate. For it is difficult to exaggerate the impact of illicit flows of small arms and light weapons in troubled places."

The same political and economic interests which prevent a more thorough UN PoA on small arms also enjoy substantial influence in some international and national development agencies.

The World Bank, for example, supports DDR programmes to reduce armed violence in war-torn areas, and has recently called for the DDR of over 350 000 ex-combatants in nine countries of the Greater Great Lakes region of Africa alone. Yet the World Bank's own Operational Policy, which is determined by its shareholders, insists that no funds be devoted to the first 'D' of 'DDR' - disarmament - nor to small arms control. The World Bank's inability to directly support disarmament is not only paradoxical, but also threatens to undermine the regional initiative's chances of success.

To address these challenges, and to affect the global sea change in political will around small arms control, it is vital that NGOs, UN agencies and interested parties develop relevant campaigning goals that can be easily communicated to the public and politicians and translated into policy objectives for donors and affected countries. Given the far-reaching consequences of small arms misuse on development, aid targeted at small arms reduction represents a cost-effective investment. But the real test is for the development community to think creatively about how to successfully and sustainably 'roll' small arms reduction into current and future poverty-reduction priorities.

Freedom from fear and the promotion of safety and security are indisputable preconditions for human development. Though the development sector faces a host of competing priorities, its proponents should recall that the reduction and destruction of small arms will play a significant role in advancing their agenda. In the end, there can be no progress without greater security for all.

Robert Muggah and Sally Gainsbury

Robert Muggah is Project Manager and Global Security Co-operation Professional Fellow (SSRC) at the Small Arms Survey

Sally Gainsbury is Research Editor at id21

For further information on this feature, contact Sally Gainsbury, id21, email: s.gainsbury@ids.ac.uk Telephone: +44 (0) 1273 877305

The Small Arms Survey is an independent research project located at the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, Switzerland. It serves as the principle international source of public information on all aspects of small arms, and as a resource centre for governments, policy makers, researchers, and activists. http://www.smallarmssurvey.org

id21 is a fast-track development research reporting service funded by the UK Department for International Development. See http://www.id21.org for more details. Information for members of the press is available at http://www.id21.org/id21-media/index.html

Further Information:

UN Meeting on Small Arms July 7-11: A battle between rich and poor? Read the press release on this issue

The latest id21 research reports on small arms and development research

Small Arms Survey research occasional paper series:
http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/publications/occasional.htm

The 2002 'World Report on Violence and Health': http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention

'Development Held Hostage' study by the UNDP on how violence from small arms undermines the quality and quantity of development: http://www.undp.org/erd/smallarms/docs/development_held_hostage.pdf

Malawi Security Sector Reform project report: http://www.nisat.org/security%20sector/August_Project_report.htm

UNDP Small arms and light weapons control programme in Albania:
http://www.undp.org.al/salwc/

The International Action Network on Small Arms
http://www.iansa.org

UK Department for International Development 'Small Arms and Light Weapons: UK Policy Briefing': http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Pubs/files/salw_briefing.pdf

World Bank Multi-Regional Demobilization and Reintegration Programme:
lnweb18.worldbank.org/essd/essd.nsf/CPR/Demobilization

First Biennial Meeting of States on the Implementation of the UN Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons, New York, 7-11 July, 2003
http://disarmament.un.org/cab/salw-2003.html