* Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Conflict Armament Research (CAR) is currently active in 13 war-affected regions – including Iraq, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Syria – CAR deploys small investigation teams into armed conflicts to identify and trace the supply of conventional weapons.
We do this to enable the international community to understand and regulate arms supplies more effectively, challenging the threat that arms-fuelled war and insurgency pose to development in large parts of the world.
Sometimes we work with national authorities to document weapons captured from rebel forces; at other times, we work directly with the rebel forces themselves. In either case, we work as close to the weapons themselves as possible and build our investigations from the ground up.
We do this because it is the only way to understand, and thereby address, destabilising weapon transfers into war zones. In the same way that tackling the spread of disease requires first isolating its transmission vectors, mitigating the supply of weapons requires isolating modes of supply – which in this case, means the providers, traffickers, and routes taken to deliver weapons.
We map the journey of each individual weapon, from manufacture to its use in war. Then we aggregate this information to provide comprehensive data on the types and origins of weapons entering a conflict. This enables us to report detailed global information on the percentage of weapons produced by a given country for example, or the relative quantities of weapons trafficked via one route or by one party.
Policy makers need this information if they are to:
- Pressurise national governments to stop supplying weapons illegally to warring parties
- Ensure that their own laws and regulations prevent irresponsible arms exports
- Identify ‘choke points’ where defense and security operations may be targeted to halt further arms trafficking.
From a policy perspective, CAR provides an unprecedented level of detail. Since June 2014, we have documented more than 27,000 weapons, ammunition, and related material from Islamic State (IS) forces alone.
We are currently investigating supply routes and, in time, will draw an accurate map of arms transfers into IS-controlled areas of Iraq and Syria.
We have very similar operations underway in a range of conflicts across sub-Saharan Africa – notably in war-afflicted Central African Republic, Somalia, and South Sudan.
With the generous support of the European Council, we are expanding tracing operations worldwide, within the framework of our iTrace Global Weapon Reporting System. iTrace profiles every weapon transfer documented by CAR. It provides vital policy information on diversion (unauthorised retransfer), enabling national decision makers to quantify proliferation, and hence identify arms control priorities.
CAR’s strength lies in its ‘boots on the ground’ approach, which differentiates it from other arms control organisations. In simple terms, we have three objectives in our efforts to effect change:
- Understand: We seek first to map supply routes precisely and quantify the types and origins of weapons used in armed conflicts and their users
- Inform: We work to inform policy makers by channeling information directly into parts of the international system that offer the greatest potential to develop effective arms control policy
- Pressure: We stream information to the international news media and maintain an informed diplomatic presence, to pressure policy makers into realising effective arms control.
CAR is currently the only non-governmental organisation to specialise in tracking the supply of weapons into conflict-affected areas and fragile states. It is, moreover, the only UK-based organisation to focus exclusively on arms control.
Our team of 10 is headquartered in Bloomsbury, London, with a satellite office in Nairobi and aspirations to establish offices in Geneva and New York. Find out more about our work by visiting our website.
-By James Bevan, Ashoka Fellow and founder of Conflict Armament Research. James Bevan is Ashoka's Fellow of the Month. Article appeared originally on Virgin Unite. Follow Ashoka news and opportunities by subscribing to AshokaUK’s newsletter.
