Search

[Page] Drones as Weapons in Armed Conflicts

[Event] UN General Assembly side event \ Countering Illicit Weapons and Ammunition Trafficking in Africa

• BICC together with the AU, ECOWAS, RECSA, and the German Federal Foreign Office invited to a joint side event at the 64th Session of the UN General Assembly First Committee on 23 October in New York.
• It has long been recognised that countering the illicit trade in small arms requires regional  action. The 2001 UN Programme of Action highlighted the role of regional organisations in  small arms and light weapons (SALW) control, calling on states to take action at the national,  regional and global levels. Regional Economic Communities and regional bodies are an integral part of the  African Union’s Silencing the Guns Plan of Action (STG-PoA). “The African Union’s plan aims...

[Project] Transboundary water management and crisis prevention

• How can the different interests of riparian states in international waters be taken into account or balanced? Can such settlements perhaps even act as an example for solving other conflict situations? How can one achieve a fair distribution of domestic and inter-state water resources? A BICC project is dealing with questions of the conflict potential of cross-border and domestic water management within the framework of various studies, publications, conferences and workshops. This project focuse...

[Press] New TRAFIG publication \ Starting up and starting over: Refugee entrepreneurs in East Africa

• A new policy brief, based on studies conducted by the EU Horizon 2020 research project TRAFIG in two refugee-hosting countries in Africa, Ethiopia and Tanzania, highlights the critical role that networks play in getting refugee businesses up and running.
• “While the findings from Ethiopia and Tanzania highlight the important role of individual-level support, they also point to a potential role for donors, investors and NGOs in strengthening networks and providing start-up capital to get more refugee ventures off the ground, thereby lifting refugees out of protracted displacement”, the authors conclude. In particular, the central findings and policy implications of TRAFIG policy brief no. 4, “Starting up and starting over: How networking can enabl...

[Publication] Transboundary water governance in Southern Africa: An indroduction

This collection of Southern African case studies is intended to contribute to the burgeoning literature on transboundary water governance (TBWG) particularly as it applies to areas of the Global South. Specifically, the collection interrogates the idea of the ‘boundary’. Transboundary Management is most commonly conceived of as the management of surface and groundwater shared by two or more sovereign states. This conceptualization is codified in international law devised in the first instance as...

[Event] Workshop \ Operationalising cross-border cooperation on countering the illicit trafficking of SALW in East Africa

• The African Union (AU) together with the Regional Centre on Small Arms (RECSA) supported by the German Federal Foreign Office and BICC hosted a two-day workshop on the operationalisation of cross-border cooperation on countering the illicit trafficking of small arms and light weapons (SALW), which took place from 18 to 19 September 2019 in Nairobi.
• The workshop was attended by delegations from Kenya, South Sudan and Ethiopia, as well as relevant national and regional actors and specialised agencies and provided a platform to discuss relevant issues and requirements necessary for establishing, deepening or harmonising cooperation to counter illicit cross-border trafficking of SALW. Furthermore, the country delegations identified their needs and developed sets of potential activities for future cross-border cooperation in the field of SALW c...

[Publication] Transboundary water governance in Southern Africa: Beyond the state

This collection of Southern African case studies is intended to contribute to the burgeoning literature on transboundary water governance (TBWG) particularly as it applies to areas of the Global South. Specifically, the collection interrogates the idea of the ‘boundary’. Transboundary Management is most commonly conceived of as the management of surface and groundwater shared by two or more sovereign states. This conceptualization is codified in international law devised in the first instance as...

[Project] Security, armaments and development in recipient countries of German arms exports

• BICC has been receiving funds from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) for research and consultancy on arms exports, militarisation and development in recipient countries of German arms exports since 2002. The project consists of five major components: In the framework of this project, BICC compiles and updates a database (https://www.ruestungsexport.info/en) on data concerning the military sector, overall security environment, human rights situat...

[Project] The Role of External Actors in civil war economies in Sub-Saharan Africa

• Since 2003, a research programme at BICC on so-called war economies has aimed to shed light on the specific impact of external economic actors, a diverse group that includes multinationals, (neighbouring) countries, private persons, local firms, etc. on the conflict situation. One of the guiding questions was what constitutes a war economy, and how its structural features differ from a 'normal' situation. Subject to analysis were countries and regions in Sub-Sahara Africa, where a vast number of...

[Publication] Migration and displacement in Sub-Saharan Africa: The security-migration nexus II

BICC brief 39 is a documentation of the results of the international conference "Migration and Displacement in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Security – Migration Nexus II" (13-14 February 2009, Bonn). The event was supported by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and was devoted to south-south migration with a focus on displacement. In BICC brief 39 “Migration and Displacement in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Security-Migration Nexus II”, experts present the current state of ...