DYB2011-Part-II-web

United Nations Disarmament Yearbook 2011: Part II
126
representatives from the five existing NWFZs their experience in promoting,
negotiating and practically implementing negotiated arrangements for NWFZs;
and (e) discuss the region of the Middle East in this context.
The representatives of the five existing NWFZs and two regional
verification arrangements (European Atomic Energy Community and
Brazilian-Argentine Agency for Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials)
made presentations at the Forum. A presentation providing an overview of the
experience of Mongolia as a single-country NWFZ was also made.
United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs
regional centres
United Nations Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament
in Africa
In 2011, the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament
in Africa (UNREC) focused many of its activities on assisting Member
States to build a stronger legal framework and to increase their capacity for
the control of small arms and light weapons (SALW) in Africa. Recognizing
that many member States of the Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS) were using laws created in the 1960s and 1970s to regulate
SALW, UNREC took the lead in developing a detailed guide to assist
ECOWAS member States in strengthening and harmonizing their laws for the
control of SALW. The guide, which was adopted by ECOWAS member States
in June, provides guidance on how to incorporate into their national laws the
provisions on SALW in the ECOWAS Convention. (For more information on
the ECOWAS Convention, see p. 133.)
In order to assist States in East Africa to strengthen capacity to regulate
small arms brokering activities, UNREC embarked on developing new
software in 2010 specifically to help improve the registration of brokers and
manage brokering licenses, a requirement under the Nairobi Protocol for
the Prevention, Control and Reduction of Small Arms and Light Weapons
in the Great Lakes Region and the Horn of Africa. 19 Five Eastern African
Governments20 received this software along with training on its use and on
regulating brokering activities. UNREC also assisted in the drafting and
elaboration of new agreements on conventional arms control, such as the
regional and subregional common positions on an arms trade treaty (ATT)
(see below and pp. 131 and 132), and the African Union Strategy on the
Control of Illicit Proliferation, Circulation and Trafficking of Small Arms and
Light Weapons (see pp. 130 and 132).
19 Available from http://www.recsasec.org/pdf/Nairobi%20Protocol.pdf (accessed 13 June
2012).
20 Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and United Republic of Tanzania.