The character, dynamics, and instruments associated with conflict and instability have undergone a marked transition during the last decade. The international community has had to change its own threat-perceptions and conflict-solving measures accordingly.

The shift in emphasis from global to regional security issues, from interstate to intrastate conflict, and from the proliferation of conventional weapons systems to light weapons attest to these changes. In a similar way, non-military threats to security are today considered to be greater than those regarded as only military in character. Thus, the impact that migration, economic and social emergencies, banditry, and organised international crime have on societies are no longer seen as strictly internal security issues, but as issues that affect international stability at large.

The international community is not well prepared to handle these issues as it struggles to understand the problems and find effective solutions. The unparalleled responsibilities of UN peace operations - which include added needs for infrastructure and have to provide development components, apart from the more classical peacekeeping roles - are an example in point. By the same token, the community is searching for concrete links between security and development in the hope of creating more effective mechanisms to ensure long-term stability.

One of the links that has attracted world-wide attention is that between the increase in the availability of small weapons and their indiscriminate and uncontrollable proliferation, and the development of a culture of violence in several regions.

To look at this specific link, the Institute for Defence Policy has launched the Towards Collaborative Peace Project in February 1996. The Project aims to identify, understand and ultimately propose control measures for the massive proliferation of light weapons in Southern Africa. It will also attempt to understand and propose measures to counter the culture of violence that has been established, among others, by these weapons in the region. In undertaking this Project, researchers will rely on co-operative resourcing, transparency and collaboration on interdisciplinary, interagency and international levels. The Project will consist of five major components:

information gathering, processing and dissemination;



research and writing of policy papers;



capacity building and training;



field application of an education package for the reversal of a culture of violence; and



the development of strong interaction and the cultivation of appropriate networks on national, regional and international levels through personal associations, electronic systems and a series of workshops and meetings.

special effort has been made to create a link between South America and Southern Africa in attempts to provide a viable comparison between and a contrast with the mutual problems associated with the proliferation of weapons and the rise of a culture of violence in these regions. Major products of the project will be verifiable statistics on the level of weapons flow in Southern Africa, an education package for reversing the culture of violence, and a set of policy papers to propose solutions to these problems.

The Project aims to fulfil the following objectives:

through intensive field research, to create a statistical base and to conduct in-depth research on the status of arms in the region;



to liaise with researchers, and government and non-government agencies (NGOs) in a core group of countries in Southern Africa, namely South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Mozambique, Lesotho, Zambia and Swaziland to exchange information, interpretation and results of field work;



to provide policy options and propose practical measures to deal with the problem of small arms proliferation in Southern Africa;



to counter the emerging culture of violence associated with weapons in the region through the development of training manuals and educational programmes;



to enhance the local research capacity within the region through an internship programme; and



to liaise internationally in order to share information with other regions and with specific researchers, institutes and non-government organisations with an interest in curbing the proliferation of small arms.



The project will undertake in-depth research on the status of arms flow in the region based on the following parameters:



the impact of recent UN and other brokered peace accords in Africa and their link to the dissemination of weapons in the region;



the patterns of contemporary international criminal organisations that are illegally trading in weapons in Southern Africa and other regions;



the patterns of contemporary legal conventional arms flow in the region; and



the relationship between the availability of light weapons and the need to secure internal stability (which in turn can facilitate development) in the region.

The project would seek to interact at all times with NGOs, the media, government and international organisations with an interest in the Southern African region and who are able to provide the necessary input. This would allow for full participation and collaboration between the Project’s research and data bases and the wider community of policy makers, civic actors, and information specialists in the field. In this, the Project staff will interact, among others, with international programmes such as those of the United Nations Development Programme, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation's ‘Culture of Peace’ programme.

It follows that as a result of the Project’s aim to develop a special link with Latin American scholars and agencies in a collaborative and co-operative fashion, much of the capacity-building processes would also benefit this particular region. The Project will work closely with institutes and agencies in seven Southern African and four Latin American countries. This will be reflected in the profiles of researchers and interns associated to the project.

Project personnel include: Virginia Gamba as project director, Jakkie Potgieter as senior field researcher, Lora Lumpe as senior associate, and an assistant responsible for interaction and networking. Interns and researchers will be chosen with geographic and institutional diversity in mind.