Armed conflicts are at a record high and becoming harder to resolve. But what if we could act before they erupt or intensify? The spread, build-up and use of illicit weapons can be early-warning signs of conflict. Yet, prevention efforts have long overlooked them. That is starting to change – and the UN’s next leadership team must maintain this momentum. This Disarmament Week is a reminder that the most effective approaches often stop violence before it breaks out.
In 2025, more inter- and intra-State conflicts were waged than in any year since the Second World War. Conflicts are also intensifying, lasting longer and growing more intractable.
Around 245,000 people were killed in conflict last year alone. Some 120 million were forcibly displaced by major conflicts such as those in the Sudan, Ukraine and Myanmar. And long after fighting ends, people may still face physical and psychological suffering, as well as disrupted livelihoods.
The time to act is before armed conflict breaks out. Prevention not only reduces human suffering, it also limits the financial cost. Research suggests that armed conflict cost the global economy $835 billion in 2025. According to the World Bank, every dollar invested in peacebuilding and prevention could save $16 over the long term.
Why weapons matter
One way to prevent armed conflict is to tackle an essential ingredient: weapons proliferation and misuse. Logically, without weapons there can be no armed conflict. With them, fighting appears to break out more easily, last longer or intensify, depending on the context. In northwestern Nigeria, for example, research shows that environmental stress generates conflict, conflict drives demand for weapons, and the widespread availability of weapons further aggravates insecurity.
Crucially, weapons can also warn of conflict on the horizon:
- Rising prices on illicit arms markets may indicate greater demand and a heightened risk of fighting.
- The appearance of new weapons or tactics may signal an escalation in violence.
- Fewer seizures may suggest that fewer illicit weapons are circulating – or that the government has lost control on the ground.
Interpreted in context and alongside other indicators, such data can sharpen conflict analysis and forecasting.
From underused resource to emerging priority
Yet, prevention strategies often overlook these signals. Weapons-related issues can, for instance, be seen as too politically sensitive or technical. Further, arms control and prevention experts have few opportunities to exchange knowledge. Weapons data may also be inaccessible to the public, subject to time lags, insufficiently granular or otherwise poorly suited to prevention. And even where high-quality data can be obtained and analysed, it may be difficult to convert that analysis into preventative action.
The good news is that attention is growing
In 2018, the UN Secretary-General recognized that there had been “limited engagement within the system on how issues relating to arms […] can be utilized for conflict prevention.” He urged UN partners to explore how to better integrate weapons-related information and risks into conflict prevention activities.
UNIDIR responded with, among other initiatives, the Arms-Related Risk Analysis Toolkit, which offers practical guidance on weapons-related risk factors, indicators and data sources, and on how to incorporate them into conflict analysis and prevention.
Two key developments then accelerated political momentum. In the 2023 New Agenda for Peace, the UN Secretary-General called on States to “prioritize prevention,” and specifically to integrate arms control into conflict prevention initiatives. In the 2024 Pact for the Future, States responded by committing to strengthen their strategies for preventing armed conflict, including their early-warning systems. Notably, they also pledged to address the risks associated with illicit weapons through national prevention strategies.
Weapons data for more effective early warning
Conflict early-warning systems play a vital role in effective conflict prevention by identifying risks and alerting those able to respond. But they are only as good as the data they rely on, and few systematically collect, monitor or analyse information about weapons.
That is changing. In 2024, UNIDIR, Conflict Armament Research, the Peace Research Institute Oslo, and the Violence and Impacts Early-Warning System brought together leading experts in weapons data and early warning. These two communities have historically had little contact. Together, they charted practical paths forward to strengthen the use of weapons data in early warning.
This work is already bearing fruit:
- The West Africa Network for Peacebuilding is training community monitors in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire to better identify and report weapons-related risks, on the expectation that more granular data will make its early-warning system more effective. Research has shown that community-led arms control initiatives, including local data collection for early warning, can help to prevent conflict.
- The UN Department of Peace Operations is developing an early-warning and response toolkit, including weapons-related indicators and guidance. It is designed to help peacekeeping missions collect, verify and analyse information, and to act on warnings.
- The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is designing an AI model to better assess risks of conflict-related sexual violence, and aims to draw on weapons data to make those assessments more accurate.
States are also engaging. In 2025, some recommended the dissemination of innovative approaches, technologies, and weapons data for early warning and conflict prevention. The UN Secretary-General further encouraged States to strengthen their capacity to collect, analyse and share weapons data as part of their conflict prevention and early-warning strategies.
Priorities for the next United Nations leadership
UN Secretary-General António Guterres made conflict prevention a key priority when he took office in 2017. Promising progress has since been made in bringing weapons-related risks into conflict prevention. Much of the potential of weapons data, however, remains unrealized. Now is the time to unlock it. Priorities include:
- Encouraging the UN Security Council to use arms control measures not just reactively in support of peacekeeping operations, but more often proactively to prevent conflict.
- Building UN missions’ capacity to collect, interpret and harness weapons data, and to share that data responsibly, thereby strengthening conflict analysis and early warning.
- Collecting and disseminating good practice on weapons data for conflict prevention, for example through UNIDIR’s Arms Data and Early Warning Dashboard, which is being converted into a knowledge repository for weapons data and early-warning experts.
- Using reviews of arms control and conflict prevention frameworks, such as the recent review of the Nairobi Protocol on Small Arms, to prioritize weapons-related risks.
UNIDIR will continue to build tools and share resources that help turn weapons data into preventative action. The next UN Secretary-General must keep conflict prevention at the heart of the UN’s agenda – and place weapons data closer to the heart of conflict prevention.
