How can governments and international actors develop effective border controls to implement the 2001 UN SALW Programme of Action and other agreements? Efforts to prevent the diversion of small arms and light weapons (SALW) and their trafficking across borders must be undertaken within a comprehensive framework which recognises: the breadth and complexity of SALW proliferation and misuse; the wide range of measures that need to be combined to achieve effective controls; and the need to involve and secure the support of all stakeholders, including those affected by SALW-related violence. The most effective approaches are those undertaken co-operatively among neighbouring states.
Co-operation and co-ordination between neighbouring countries facilitates commensurate national control systems, and helps to establish conditions conducive to effective controls in the borderlands on each side of a border. In addition, national governments have responsibility for: the institution of a comprehensive and informed risk assessment within the context of the SALW transfer licensing process; comprehensive provisions for regulating the import, export, brokering, transit and transhipment of SALW including effective end-use and re-export controls; measures to ensure that all state-authorised SALW holdings are secure; and more active use of the International Tracing Instrument.
Customs and border controls are also central to efforts to tackle SALW diversion. Developing and implementing effective border management requires a comprehensive, integrated approach, involving a combination of state ministries and agencies.
Links with security sector reform and conflict-sensitive development processes are important. Security sector reform in this context includes reforms to improve the effectiveness and accountability of border control agencies and is also likely to relate to wider reform agendas, such as the need to develop:
- Co-ordination between international border management agencies to ensure their co-operation within a wider integrated national strategy which balances facilitation of legitimate trade and population movements, tax-collection, and prevention and combating of trafficking.
- Intelligence gathering and analysis capacities, and ensure links with policy-making and border control enforcement activities.
- Active anti-corruption programmes within all relevant agencies.
- Arrangements for co-operation between neighbouring states on border controls, including information exchange, co-operation in policy-making, and day-to-day co-operation between relevant officials.
- Reforms and capacity-building to address the security, law-enforcement justice and dispute-resolution needs and concerns of citizens and communities, particularly of those communities whose co-operation is important for effective border management.
Strategies need to be based on up-to-date assessments of the risks, drivers and processes of SALW diversion and trafficking, and should engage with the interests and concerns of the wider population – particularly in borderlands –as well as of state security. They also need to develop confidence-building, co-operation, and co-ordination with neighbouring countries. States and other stakeholders should:
- Seek to develop a better understanding of the relationship between effective border controls mechanisms and the reduction of SALW diversion and trafficking risks
- Adopt coherent, integrated borderland management programmes
- Maximise lesson-learning and seek to elaborate assistance training modules, taking into account analysis of problem border areas, relations with neighbours, and pre-existing border control capacities
- Identify the specific nature of needs and available international assistance in order to maximise the matching of needs and resources.
International programmes to support the development of border controls in regions of tension and insecurity should:
- Support the development of a multifaceted approach to border management, from policy development to institutional reform to capacity building
- Encourage states to address a range of different types of trafficking – including SALW – as part of their border management and security strategy
- Foster improved relations between border personnel in neighbouring countries.
