Small Arms Survey Podcasts

On 26-28 June 2013 the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development, the Small Arms Survey, and the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform held an Expert Meeting on armed violence observatories and monitoring systems. In this two-part podcast, meeting participants talk about the purpose, the functions, and the challenges faced by armed violence monitoring systems worldwide. In Part 1, on why such systems are needed and the way they work, we hear from Geneva Declaration Project Coordinator Luigi De Martino, Small Arms Survey Programme Director Keith Krause, Somali Observatory of Conflict and Violence Prevention General Director Abdullahi Mohammed Odowa, and ISS Pretoria’s Crime and Justice Hub Manager Lizette Lancaster.

Seven years after the conclusion of a historical peace agreement, Nepal's political situation continues to be unsettled. Yet despite persistent volatility, a recent survey conducted by the Nepal Armed Violence Assessment, a Small Arms Survey project, found that most Nepali people feel confident that the security situation has improved. Mihaela Racovita, Associate Researcher at the Small Arms Survey and lead author of the Special Report 'In Search of Lasting Security: An Assessment of Armed Violence in Nepal', tells us more about these findings, and explains why it is useful to gauge the population's perceptions of armed violence and security in Nepal.

South Africa is severely affected by the impacts and costs of armed violence, and has one of the highest rates of lethal violence against women. South African authorities and civil society have long been active in tackling this situation, and their efforts have resulted in some of the most comprehensive gun control legislation. Natalie Jaynes, Small Arms Survey researcher and author of a chapter on South Africa in the upcoming 'Small Arms Survey 2013: Everyday Dangers', discusses current challenges and further steps towards improvement.

Two years after Libyan revolutionary forces deposed Colonel Muammar Qadaffi’s regime, Libya's complex state-building process continues. Local and regional armed groups, including Libya's revolutionary brigades, have an important role to play in this process, although there is no clear understanding of how. As part of its focus project on Libya and North Africa, the Small Arms Survey has commissioned research on the identities and functions of armed groups in the country and region. Small Arms Survey consultants Peter Cole and Brian McQuinn raise some essential points to be taken into account when considering Libya's future, and in particular the part that these groups play.

Adopted on 2 April 2013 by an overwhelming majority of states in the UN General Assembly, the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is a milestone in the global regulation of the arms trade, but is not without its flaws. Small Arms Survey senior researchers Glenn McDonald and Sarah Parker, both participants in the treaty negotiations, discuss the development of the ATT, and the strengths and weaknesses of the final result.

In a presentation organized in March 2013 at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Prof. Keith Krause, Small Arms Survey programme director, addressed some of the topical issues related to lethal violence and firearms worldwide. In this podcast we introduce highlights of the presentation, which touched upon subjects that the Small Arms Survey analyses in depth in its publications and reports. For further research visit our Publications pages.

Contrary to widespread belief, areas of armed conflict are not the main scene of armed violence and its devastating effects. While conflict hotspots like civil wars and military interventions attract global attention, other forms of armed violence often place far greater strains on societies, incurring devastating costs for individuals, communities, and economies as a whole. In this Small Arms Survey podcast Luigi De Martino, Coordinator of the Secretariat of the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development, and Matthias Nowak, Associate Researcher, provide an overview of the notion of armed violence, and discuss why its investigation can be useful for research and for building stronger policies to stimulate development.

This year, the fifty-seventh session of the Commission on the Status of Women will take place at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 4 to 15 March 2013. The Priority theme of the session is the Elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls. Small Arms Survey, within the framework of its global studies on armed violence in support of the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development (Global Brurden of Armed Violence) makes an important contribution to ongoing debates concerning this issue, by examining the understudied but widespread problem of femicide. Anna Alvazzi del Frate, Small Arms Survey Research director and author of several reports on armed violence and violence against women outlines the challenges in getting accurate and useful data for policymaking, as well as some significant findings obtained so far.

In March 2013 Kenya goes to the polls. The elections occur against a backdrop of tension and controversy: two of the four main contenders face charges at the International Criminal Court relating to the 2007–08 post-election violence; the previous electoral round left behind numerous victims, displaced people, and economic damage. During the build-up to the current election there have been eruptions of violence in political hotspots. Small Arms Survey consultant Manasseh Wepundi—author of a study on Kenyan electoral violence and another on firearms and security in Kenya—discusses the enduring impacts of the catastrophic violence which occurred in the past electoral cycle, and explains some of the precautions being taken to avoid a recurrence.

In this episode, the Small Arms Survey’s Managing Director, Eric Berman, talks about the handbook on 'Regional Organzations and the UN Programme of Action on Small Arms (PoA)', a valuable guide to the regional actors and institutions involved in tackling the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons.

Welcome to the Small Arms Survey's new audio podcast series. In the first episode Small Arms Survey founder and programme director Keith Krause takes you through the Survey's history, from its origins to its current activities and impacts. Thirteen years of Small Arms Survey activities have yielded a multitude of publications, and refined the Survey's research methodologies for a range of issues related to small arms and light weapons worldwide. To make sure you don't miss future episodes, you can subscribe to this podcast series on iTunes.