Current Research

International Small Arms and Ammunition Guidance Platform (ISAP II): A Platform to Explore Options to Strengthen Arms and Ammunition Management

International Small Arms and Ammunition Guidance Platform (ISAP II): A Platform to Explore Options to Strengthen Arms and Ammunition Management

01/02/2015

UNIDIR in 2015 initiated a project—known as the International Small Arms and Ammunition Guidance Platform (ISAP)—designed to conduct policy-relevant research, facilitate expert dialogue and create practical tools in order to improve programming and practices on arms and ammunition management. The platform aims to support the practical application of voluntary international guidelines—namely IATGs and the ISACS2—to assist field practitioners in their effort to manage arms and ammunition and to better inform policymakers on potential options and approaches in establishing a sustainable national framework governing arms and ammunition in fragile settings. Phase I of this project developed a prototype tool to facilitate the use of the ISACS and IATGs to support storage assessment and carried out preliminary research on challenges and opportunities in applying existing voluntary guidelines in conflict and post-conflict settings.

Building on the key findings from Phase I, Phase II (2016) of the Platform comprises the following pillars of work:
- Pillar 1: Practical arms and ammunition management checklist tool—based on the ISACS security and safety storage assessments at the field level;
- Pillar 2: Series of informal consultative meetings on designing a national framework on full lifecycle management on arms and ammunition management in fragile settings;
- Pillar 3: A research study to examine possible options and approaches to enhance common understanding and alignment in measures aimed at strengthening the management of arms and ammunition in fragile settings; and
- Pillar 4: A series of national assessment workshops to support States’ efforts to review and/or establish baselines in the implementation of SALW control in line with voluntary international guidelines.

Researchers: Himayu Shiotani, Hardy Giezendanner, Daniel Golston.

Support from UNIDIR's core funders provides the foundation for all of the Institute's activities.
In addition, dedicated project funding was received from the Governments of Germany and Switzerland.

Phase I: International Small Arms and Ammunition Guidance Platform (ISAP)

The practical application of global guidelines on arms and ammunition management is not without challenges—in particular in the context of field operations in conflict/post-conflict settings where there are often time and resource constraints. The objective of this project was to improve the accessibility and applicability of control measures that apply to both small arms and their ammunition in order to enhance the capacity of field practitioners tasked with supporting the management of arms and ammunition in a conflict/post conflict setting. This project developed a package of tools under one interface—known as the International Small Arms and Ammunition Guidance Platform (ISAP)—designed to collect, organize and assess implementation efforts based on targeted guidance on arms and ammunition management in response to users’ information feed.

The project has helped to establish capacity among relevant field practitioners, in particular for those operating in conflict/post-conflict settings, to provide consistent and comprehensive high quality guidance to States based on the global guidelines.

Researchers: Himayu Shiotani, Hardy Giezendanner

Support from UNIDIR's core funders provides the foundation for all of the Institute's activities.
In addition, dedicated project funding was received from the Governments of Germany and Switzerland.