CASTRIES, St. Lucia, CMC – St. Lucia is hosting the third annual meeting of States of the Caribbean Firearms Roadmap that begins here on Tuesday, bringing together officials from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Dominican Republic.
The meeting was organized by the Trinidad-based CARICOM Implementation Agency for Crime and Security (IMPACS) and the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament, and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNLIREC) in collaboration with the St. Lucia government.
The government of Canada is funding the two-day event. It brings together national officials, ministers of security, and other high-level representatives from the Caribbean region and the international community to discuss ongoing efforts to combat the illicit proliferation and misuse of firearms and ammunition.
“The trafficking and misuse of illicit firearms and ammunition continue to result in high homicide and crime rates in many Caribbean States, negatively impacting human and public security. They also greatly affect socioeconomic development across the region, including the public health implications of gun deaths and injuries and the impact of crime on business development and investment,” according to a statement issued by the organizers that also indicated that the meeting is not open to the media.
It said to address those challenges, in 2020, all 15 CARICOM states and the Dominican Republic adopted the Caribbean Firearms Roadmap, formally known as ‘Roadmap for Implementing The Caribbean Priority Actions on the Illicit Proliferation of Firearms and Ammunition across the Caribbean Sustainably by 2030’, with the vision of creating a safer Caribbean region.
“Since then, the Roadmap has served as a guiding document to achieve the commonly agreed goals and actions, which include strengthening regulatory frameworks on firearms and ammunition; reducing the illicit flow of firearms into, within, and beyond the region, and strengthening law enforcement capacity to combat illicit firearms trafficking. To achieve these goals, states are developing National Action Plans (NAPs), which set out states’ national priorities and timelines.”
The statement said that for the past years, state partners and donors from the international community have gathered virtually to discuss the Roadmap’s implementation.
It said this year, for the first time, they will meet in person over two days to take stock and renew their commitment to fully and effectively implementing the Roadmap’s goals.
The first day of the meeting is dedicated to the Roadmap’s operational aspects, including the importance of evidence-based policymaking based on data collection efforts and a robust monitoring and evaluation framework.
“Participants will also share best practices and lessons learned from national flagship initiatives to address armed violence across the region,” the organizers said, adding that various other stakeholders including the Organization of American States (OAS), International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the Small Arms Survey (SAS) and the World Customs Organization (WCO) will also make interventions.
On the final day of the meeting, national security ministers and senior officials will meet with a “view to taking stock of the significant progress and essential achievements made under the Roadmap to date, while examining ways to achieve further progress to overcome existing implementing gaps to strengthen further the security of the Caribbean region and its communities.
The United Nations Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Izumi Nakamitsu, will participate in the meeting that “will conclude with the adoption of a joint statement.”
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