Malian officials trained on new SOPs for physical security and stockpile management of weapons and ammunition

The United Nations Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Africa (UNREC), in collaboration with the Government of Mali, through Mali’s National Commission for the Fight against the Proliferation of Small Arms (CNLPAL), organized a training-of-trainers workshop on standard operating procedures (SOPs) for the physical security and stockpile management (PSSM) of weapons and ammunition, in Bamako, from 22 to 26 January 2018.

The workshop trained officials directly involved in the management of weapons and ammunition storage sites, as well as officials from security services such as the army, the gendarmerie, the police, customs and institutions in charge of the environment.

UNREC had developed the SOPs based upon the International Small Arms Control Standards and the International Ammunition Technical Guidelines. Malian experts then reviewed and validated the SOPs, and amended the manual that accompanies them, at a previous workshop in September 2017.

The two workshops are part of UNREC’s PSSM Sahel project. The project aims to assist six States in the Sahel region (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Nigeria) to prevent the diversion and trafficking of small arms and light weapons and their ammunition. It is funded by the European Union.