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Recommendations following the work of the Sub- Regional Technical Capacity-Building Workshop for stakeholders involved in the implementation of the Kinshasa Convention on Small Arms light weapons

 

From 24 to 26 April 2019, a sub-regional technical capacity-building workshop for stakeholders involved in the implementation of the Kinshasa Convention on Small Arms and Light Weapons took place in Yaoundé, Republic of Cameroon. The workshop is an integral part of the project Supporting African States towards the African Union’s vision of "Silencing the Guns in Africa by 2020: capacity building for Central African States,” jointly implemented by the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA), the United Nations Regional Office for Central Africa (UNOCA) and the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS).

The participants of this workshop included the representatives of State Parties and Signatories to the Kinshasa Convention, international experts in the field of SALW and representatives of specialized organizations.

Having commended the administrative, regulatory, institutional and operational measures already taken by the Member States and the General Secretariat of ECCAS, the participants highlighted some difficulties in the implementation of the Kinshasa Convention on Small Arms and Light Weapons and proposed the following recommendations:

For the General Secretariat of ECCAS:

  1. Establish a provisional Secretariat of the Kinshasa Convention while awaiting its operationalization, in accordance with the decision taken by the first Conference of State Parties to the Convention, held from 11 to 13 June 2018 in Yaoundé in the Republic of Cameroon;
  2. Create a template for national reporting on the implementation of the Kinshasa Convention;
  3. Finalize and share with Member States the first draft of the sub-regional action plan on the implementation of the Kinshasa Convention ;
  4. Sensitize and encourage the Signatory States of the Kinshasa Convention that have not yet done so, to ratify it as soon as possible ;

For the Signatory States and/or Parties to the Kinshasa Convention:

  1. Assign staff to the Secretariat of the Kinshasa Convention;
  2. Submit the 2018 national reports on the implementation of the United Nations Programme of Action to the United Nations Secretariat before December 2019;
  3. Submit biannual reports on the current status of the implementation of the Kinshasa Convention to the General Assembly of the African Union, in the framework of the biannual report of the Peace and Security Council on the progress in the implementation of the African Union’s roadmap of “Silencing the Guns in Africa by the Year 2020” ;
  4. Create synergies between relevant international and regional instruments to reduce duplication of effort and reporting burden ;
  5. Build synergies among stakeholders involved in the implementation of the Kinshasa Convention in order to avoid duplication of effort and develop joint projects ;
  6. Establish impact indicators to measure the harmful effects of Small Arms and Light Weapons (such as the number of SALW-related injuries and deaths) ;
  1. Connect statistical services and civil society to the National Commissions on SALW to facilitate data collection on relevant indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals, including targets 16.1 and 16.4 on reducing rates of violence and illicit financial as well as arms flows ;
  2. Establish transparency indicators to control the availability of data on arms originating from different entities ;
  3. Regularly update records on the proportion of marked and registered weapons ;
  4. Regularly update records on the number of weapons seized from civilians ;
  5. Establish mechanisms for information sharing among different stakeholders such as the National Commission on SALW, statistical services, health care institutions and civil society organizations ;
  6. Exploit the comparative advantages of civil society activities in raising awareness against armed violence ;
  7. Strengthen provisions on stockpile management in order to reduce diversion of weapons ;
  8. Implement the Africa Amnesty Month as recommended by the African Union Roadmap on Practical Steps to Silence the Guns in Africa ;
  9. Facilitate the field missions of national experts that are planned in each of the ECCAS Member States between May and June 2019, as part of the project to support the implementation of the Kinshasa Convention ;
  10. Ensure the representation of female experts in National Commissions on SALW, in accordance with the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) ;
  11. Strengthen gender considerations to increase implementation results and further contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, in particular Goal 5 on Gender Equality.

Done in Yaoundé on 26 April 2019