Small Arms Survey podcasts

In this episode of the Small Arms Survey podcast series, Small Arms Survey consultant Hana Salama—author of our February 2018 Briefing Paper Counting Casualties: Operationalizing SDG 16.1.2 in Libya—speaks about the challenges involved in measuring casualties in conflict settings. The Briefing Paper and the podcast both form part of our Security Assessment in North Africa (SANA) project, which focuses on supporting those engaged in building a more secure environment in North Africa and the Sahel-Sahara region.

Contrary to the impression given by Hollywood's depictions, most firearms seized from drug traffickers and gang members in the United States are handguns, not automatic rifles or sub-machine guns. In this podcast, senior researcher Matt Schroeder highlights and explains key findings from his analysis of more than 140,000 records on firearms seized from criminals in eight US cities. These findings were released this summer as a chapter in Small Arms Survey 2014: Women and Guns.

Seven years after the conclusion of a historical peace agreement, Nepal's political situation continues to be unsettled. Yet despite persistent volatility, a recent survey conducted by the Nepal Armed Violence Assessment, a Small Arms Survey project, found that most Nepali people feel confident that the security situation has improved. Mihaela Racovita, Associate Researcher at the Small Arms Survey and lead author of the Special Report 'In Search of Lasting Security: An Assessment of Armed Violence in Nepal', tells us more about these findings, and explains why it is useful to gauge the population's perceptions of armed violence and security in Nepal.

Adopted on 2 April 2013 by an overwhelming majority of states in the UN General Assembly, the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is a milestone in the global regulation of the arms trade, but is not without its flaws. Small Arms Survey senior researchers Glenn McDonald and Sarah Parker, both participants in the treaty negotiations, discuss the development of the ATT, and the strengths and weaknesses of the final result.

This two-part podcast is based on interviews with participants at the Expert Meeting on armed violence observatories and monitoring systems held on 26-28 June 2013 by the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development, the Small Arms Survey, and the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform. The first set of interviews looked at why armed violence monitoring systems are needed and how they work. The second installment of the podcast brings testimonies on the challenges of using data gathered by armed violence observatories to build policy action. Discussing these issues are Geneva Declaration Project Coordinator Luigi De Martino, UNDP Sudan Max Halty, ISS Pretoria’s Crime and Justice Hub Manager Lizette Lancaster, and criminologist Yann-Cedric Quéro, from the Université of Montréal.