Small Arms Survey Annual Report 2023

By Katie Lazaro with Luigi De Martino, Olivia Denonville, Nathalie Fauvarque, Nicolas Florquin, and Lionel Kosirnik, with inputs from Small Arms Survey staff members and consultants.

The year 2023 was significant for a number of reasons. It saw the conclusion of Daniel de Torres’ successful stewardship as director of the Small Arms Survey, and so we thank him for his dedicated service to the Survey over the last four years. This year also marked the final year of the Survey’s five-year strategy and the completion of significant projects such as Strengthening Implementation and Enforcement of the Arms Embargo on North Korea, as well as the announcement of Mark Downes' appointment as the Survey’s new director.  For the Survey, it was a year underlined by innovation, with in-depth regional studies on the socio-economic costs of armed violence in the Caribbean, the trafficking of improvised explosive device components in West Africa, and arms proliferation in Afghanistan, as well as an update to the Global Violent Deaths database. More worryingly for the arms control and armed violence reduction agendas, 2023 saw the reversal of progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 16.1. With increases in conflict-related deaths around the world (including in occupied Palestinian territory, Sudan, and Ukraine), ongoing challenges to real-world implementation of legal arms control measures designed to prevent gender-based violence in parts of Latin America, and the ever-increasing threat of privately made firearms—ranging from artisanal weapons to 3D printed firearms—this past year could be described as a turning point for our agenda.

Geneva, SWIT: Small Arms Survey, 2024. 23p.