UN small arms conference gets underway

The UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms will be taking place in New York from Monday 9 July until Friday 20 July. According to a statement on Friday from the UN Development Programme (UNDP), which supports programmes to reduce the proliferation of small arms, the conference “seeks to develop and strengthen measures to prevent and combat illicit small arms trafficking and manufacturing and to reduce excessive and destabilising stockpiles and transfers of such weapons throughout the world”. Robert Scharf, who heads the UNDP Small Arms Reduction Programme, noted that “people don’t think of illicit small arms as a huge global problem, but more than five million people have been killed by small arms used in conflicts over the last decade. The use of these weapons has crippled economies and impoverished millions”. UNDP also announced on Friday that small arms will be ceremoniously destroyed in several countries on Monday to mark Small Arms Destruction Day and the start of the conference. It was hoped that such demonstrations “will help raise global awareness of the problem of small arms and also help people in the countries where the events are held feel that concrete efforts are underway to make their communities safer and the prospects for the future brighter.” UNDP, in cooperation with the UN Secretariat, governments and a wide range of humanitarian agencies and NGOs, is working to reduce the proliferation of small arms in the Republic of the Congo (ROC), Albania, Kosovo, Niger, the Philippines, El Salvador, and the Solomon Islands. New programmes are planned for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Great Lakes region of Africa, Somalia and Haiti. For further information on the UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms, see http://www.un.org/Depts/dda/CAB/smallarms/. For further information on the UNDP Small Arms Reduction Programme, see http://www.undp.org/erd/smallarms/index.html