Parliamentarians from member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) just ended a sensitization workshop on the domestic use of international and regional instruments on light weapons and small arms control in Lome, the Togolese capital.
The defense and security committees of ECOWAS parliaments have been enlightened on their roles in the development of national legislation on small arms and light weapons.
They also explored the protocol of weapons manufacturing, trafficking in firearms, ammunition and related equipment and tracing of weapons, on the initiative of the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Africa (UNREC) and the German Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
“Through this meeting we want to consolidate the role of parliamentarians in fighting the proliferation of small arms which remains a challenge for African countries. And parliamentarians have a key role to play to stop the phenomenon,” Sebastian Sperling, the West Africa politics and security coordinator at the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation, told APA.
A large quantity of small arms circulates in Africa. To curb the phenomenon, countries and international bodies have adopted international, regional and sub-regional policies and instruments to control small arms and light weapons.
In this regard, the West African MPs were briefed on the United Nations program on illicit trade in small arms, the Bamako Declaration and the ECOWAS Convention on Small Arms.
Source African Press Agency
