The Global Armed Violence Prevention Programme (AVVP)

This programme seeks to provide a broad variety of interventions, in a number of settings, as a complement to the security sector reform approach. The programme aims to reduce armed violence and demand for small arms in order to develop policies and strategies to address armed violence at the local and national levels in selected countries, and to in turn generate best practices and lessons learned in violence prevention.
 
The authors expound on issues such as:

• Causes of armed violence: most analysts of violence utilise one or more theoretical explanatory models that focus on the relationships and interactions between issues of structure, identity and agency
  
• Impacts and consequences of armed violence: whether at the local or national level, can have a negative impact on the well-being of populations and the ability of governments to provide key public services
  
• Addressing armed violence: in southern environments, a dearth of reliable and accurate data, together with weak state capacities, have obstructed the emergence of effective responses.

The paper then offers a number of recommendations:

• A regional focus should be incorporated into AVPP activities, particularly those implemented at the global level
  
• Current practice and experience have highlighted the importance of distinguishing between long-term prevention measures and shorter-term measures to interrupt violence dynamics
  
• There should be a growing recognition of differences between the dynamics of armed violence in non-conflict but crisis contexts
  
• Programmes and other measures to address armed violence should be linked to, and where possible integrated within, these broader frameworks, strategies and programmes
  
• There is an emerging recognition of the need for coherent, integrated, and evidence-guided strategies to address the issue of armed violence at international, regional and local levels.