Amid accelerated rearmament and a record high number of armed conflicts, early warning is a key tool for conflict prevention and mitigation. Improving the performance of conflict early-warning efforts is thus essential, and relies on their access to all relevant data. Data on flows of weapons into fragile contexts can be highly relevant for early warning. However, its use remains sporadic and underexplored.
UNIDIR, Conflict Armament Research (CAR), Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), and the Violence and Impacts Early-Warning System (VIEWS) launched the joint “Arms Flows and Early Warning (AFEW)” initiative in 2024. It seeks to strengthen the utility and use of arms flow data for more effective conflict early-warning and to build bridges between experts from both thematic fields. Expert exchanges online and at an international conference in 2024 carved out key takeaways and pathways to action to that end. These were published in an insight report. They highlighted key data requirements of early-warning initiatives using traditional and computational methods. They also pinpointed challenges related to data accessibility, timeliness, frequency of updates and geographic scope. Importantly, these exchanges identified concrete pathways to strengthen data collection and suitability, enhance knowledge-sharing and capacity, promote policy action and facilitate partnerships.
Building on these key takeaways and pathways to action, UNIDIR, CAR, PRIO and VIEWS will convene the emerging community of practice of arms flow monitors and early-warning experts. This interactive meeting seeks for experts to exchange views on new research and concrete actions initiated since the first expert exchanges in 2024. In doing so, it seeks to foster knowledge, exchange, and learning across thematic fields, and to inspire further action and partnerships.
Specifically, the community of practice meeting aims to:
- Examine key developments in arms flow data collection and their potential to strengthen data suitability for early warning;
- Explore recent efforts by early warning initiatives to consider arms flow data in their systems; and
- Share lessons learned since expert exchanges in 2024 and discuss further ideas to strengthen utility and use of arms flow data in conflict early-warning in the future.
When and where
Thursday, 9 October 2025, 15:00 – 17:00 CEST, online via Zoom.
Please consult this website to find your local time.
Language
This event will be held in English. Kindly note that interpretation will not be available in other UN languages.
Participants
This meeting will bring together arms flow monitoring and conflict early-warning experts from the UN, international and regional organizations, academia and research institutes, and civil society – across science, implementation and policymaking. Kindly note that participation is by invitation only.
Further information
For any queries, please contact Matilde Vecchioni at matilde.vecchioni@un.org or Joshua Bata at joshua.bata@un.org.