IANSA Report: Building civil society dialogues with governments to promote national PoA priorities (October 2022)

IANSA’s pilot project “Building Civil Society Dialogues with Governments to Promote National PoA Priorities” presented an opportunity for states and civil society to work together to deter proliferation and promote better regulation of small arms, consistent with the state’s relevant international and regional agreements. Twelve IANSA members spread across Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean served as national facilitators, reaching out to government officials responsible for SALW control as well as other relevant civil society actors. The key messages were:

• The benefits of setting national targets to supplement existing more general goals with more specific goals that are developed based on the country´s specific contexts.
• The benefits of a dialogue with civil society as organisations with grassroot expertise and experience on the effects of small arms-related violence.
• The benefits of gathering relevant stakeholders ahead of BMS8 to explore and establish synergies in the national context between international and regional instruments small arms regulation with the aim to develop national priorities for the next phase of PoA implementation.

The pilot initiative demonstrates that states and civil society can work together in a variety of formats, finding innovative ways to exchange experiences and make progress on PoA implementation.