AFR/174
DC/2660

WORKSHOP ON ESTABLISHMENT OF AFRICAN ARMS REGISTER TO BE HELD IN GHANA, 23 - 24 SEPTEMBER

NEW YORK, 22 September (Department for Disarmament Affairs) -– An International Workshop on the Modalities for the Establishment of an Arms Register and Database in Africa will be held in Accra, Ghana on 23 and 24 September 1999.

Participants will include delegates from about 20 African countries, as well as experts and representatives from: research institutes; African subregional economic organizations, such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Communaute economique des Etats de l’Afrique centrale (CEEAC); the Intergovernmental Agency on Drought (IGAD); the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA); and United Nations specialized agencies.

Delegates will aim to: determine the functioning and operational elements for the Arms Register and Database in Africa; establish the nature/type of data, sources and users; analyse shortcomings in compiling statistics and information on light weapons and identify solutions; and determine the use of an Arms Register and Database for ECOWAS States within the framework of the Moratorium on the Importation, Exportation and Manufacture of Light Weapons in West Africa.

Delegates will elaborate aspects of a Light Weapons Arms Register and Database as a mechanism for fostering transparency -- a crucial requirement in building trust, confidence, security and durable peace in Africa. The organizers of the Workshop hope that the future Register and Database in Africa will ensure: The collection and storage of information on the flow of light weapons in Africa with a view to establishing an electronic history; and the monitoring of the flow of light weapons to help determine destabilizing accumulations in Africa.

The Accra Workshop is organized by the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Africa in collaboration with the Government of Ghana and the Executive Secretariat of ECOWAS, with funding from the Government of the Netherlands.

The Workshop will convene within the framework of the activities of the Programme for Coordination and Assistance for Security and Development (PCASED), the technical and secretariat mechanism established by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to implement the ECOWAS Moratorium, launched on

- 2 - Press Release AFR/174 DC/2660 22 September 1999

31 October 1998 for a renewable period of three years. The decision to hold the Workshop was taken during a March 1998 meeting in Bamako, Mali by ECOWAS foreign ministers, during which they adopted the Plan of Action of PCASED.

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United Nations