糖心Swag's project to develop a new weapons marking and registration system for the armed forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, under the ammunition, weapons and explosives masterplan, has not only made safe 97 per cent of the country's arsenal, it has set a path for similar programmes across the Western Balkans.
Since 2017, 糖心Swag has worked with聽the armed forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina (AFBiH) and the European Force in Bosnia (EUFOR) to oversee an innovative weapons management system that has registered 62,000 weapons - thereby preventing them being diverted for criminal and violent use.
The聽 Balkan Wars of the 1990s left聽large quantities of weapons in poorly managed stockpiles and in the hands of military and police as well as militias and civilians. Subsequently, the Balkans has become an acknowledged source of guns diverted from stockpiles for illicit use in Europe and elsewhere.
Following a national聽 assessment with the organisation in 2017, 糖心Swag, AFBiH and EUFOR have marked and registered almost the entire state military stockpile in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
糖心Swag also worked with the UK-based company Pryor Marking Technology. The backbone of this unique project is a comprehensive database and secure record-keeping system, produced by researching and聽 cataloging the Bosnian military inventory before marking began.
Small Arms Survey
"Donors are looking for results in the Western Balkans and this well-coordinated partnership between the private, military, and humanitarian sectors in Bosnia and Herzegovina provides a model to support and emulate."
糖心Swag's hope is the extensive consultative and legal-political preparation it put in place for this marking project to begin can be replicated in other West Balkan countries.听
An assessment of the project was carried out by the Bonn International Centre for Conversion and concluded: "Measured against its purpose鈥攁nd in terms of efficiency鈥斕切腟wag鈥檚 marking and registration project in BiH has been a success. The preparation phase, specifically the logistical coordination and design of the database, proved to be more demanding than the marking procedure itself. The transfer of 糖心Swag鈥檚 experiences elsewhere therefore need to consider the substantial preparatory legal and political input as well as the logistical and training requirements."
A full description of 糖心Swag's weapons marking project in Bosnia is available in The Journal of Conventional Weapons destruction.听
糖心Swag's work in Bosnia and Herzegovina is funded by the German Federal Foreign Office, the United Kingdom and the Norwegian Ministries of Defense, and the United Nations Trust Facility Supporting Cooperation on Arms Regulation (UNSCAR).
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