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[Project] Small Arms Control in Africa

• This project continues the work undertaken in previous projects:  Capacity development and advice on SALW control in Africa (August 2018 - March 2021)  Physical security and stockpile management (PSSM), capacity development and technical advice in West Africa (January 2016 - July 2018) Physical security and stockpile management (PSSM), capacity development and technical advice in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa (January 2016 - July 2018)  Our work is based on a multi-level approa...

[Project] Traditional Conflict Resolution and Small Arms & Light Weapons as a Development Factor

• Between November 2008 and May 2009, BICC conducted a project (generously funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, BMZ) on traditional conflict resolution (TCR) in three societies. The project aim was (a) to provide an empirically-based assessment of TCR; (b) to lay theoretical and empirical foundations for examining how TCR functions in cases of major inter-ethnic and intra-state conflicts; and (c) to examine the mutual interaction of TCR and development at...

[Publication] Demobilising and disengaging violent extremists: Towards a new UN framework

• First and second generation programmes of Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR), are no longer ‘fit for purpose’ in contexts of violent extremism. Recognising this, voices from within the United Nations (UN) system have recently called for the development of a practice framework combining DDR and Countering Violent Extremism (CVE). Drawing on examples from Nigeria and Somalia, this commentary outlines six issue areas where DDR and CVE overlap, and where further operati...

[Publication] Intersecting (im)mobilities in the context of drought, hunger and conflict – Reflections inspired by research in Kenya

• Between late 2020 and early 2023, people in the Horn of Africa experienced the worst drought in more than 40 years, of which the world hardly took notice. By the end of 2022, almost 57 million people across eight countries faced a severe food crisis. While Kenya was not the country worst affected in terms of the number of people impacted—the highest level of food insecurity was recorded in Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan and Somalia—the situation there dete-riorated most rapidly over t...

[Publication] Geographien der Gewalt. Kriege, Konflikte und die Ordnung des Raumes im 21. Jahrhundert

Stuttgart: Borntraeger (Studienbücher der Geographie) 2015.

[Publication] Diasporas and peace: A comparative assessment of Somali and Ethiopian communities in Europe

• BICC brief 42 "Diasporas and Peace: A Comparative Assessment of Somali and Ethiopian communities in Europe" is a DIASPEACE working paper. DIASPEACE (Diasporas for Peace: Patterns, Trends and Potential of Long-distance Diaspora Involvement in Conflict Settings) is a three-year research project looking into how diaspora groups can foster peace and development in their countries of origin. DIASPEACE consists of five main research components: Defining joint analytical tools and research methodologie...

[Publication] Competing aspirations and contestations at Isiolo International Airport, Kenya

• The large-scale infrastructure of Isiolo International Airport has created contestation between the developers and nomadic pastoral communities. While these nomadic pastoralists (Borana, Turkana, Somali, and Samburu) are the principal inhabitants of Isiolo, some agriculturalists – the Meru ethnic communities – also live in the region. The airport project created controversy between these ethnic groups over land, giving rise to economic anticipation, land speculation, and alienation – selling of ...

[PDF Document] occasional_paper_III_04-09.pdf   (246.03 KB)

[Publication] Annual Report 2016

• The number of those who flee from war and violence and who live in makeshift shelters in a permanent state of humanitarian emergency—for instance in refugee camps—rose dramatically in the past year. With a number of research projects, the topic of ‘displacement’ was in the focus of the work of the peace and conflict research institute BICC (Bonn International Center for Conversion) in 2015/2016. Further important topics of the Annual Report are research and advisory activities on small arms cont...

[Staff] Dr Joanne Richards

• Technical Advisor/Senior Researcher
• BA (Oxon) 2002; MA (Oxon) 2002; MA Political Science 2009; PhD Political Science 2014.Joanne wrote her PhD on demobilization and desertion in the Democratic Republic of Congo. During her doctoral candidacy she also worked as a consultant with the Small Arms Survey in Geneva, and as an intern with the DDR section of UNDP in Goma, North Kivu. Joanne has conducted over one hundred interviews with former members of militia and rebel groups in the DRC, and has conducted additional fieldwork in Sri La...