ECOWAS Press Release No. 54/1999 ECOWAS and UNRCPDA Hold Workshop on the Establishment of Data base and Arms Register on Light Weapons in Africa 15 September The United Nations Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Africa (UNRCPDA) and ECOWAS will on the 23rd and 24th September, 1999 jointly organise a workshop on the Establishment of a Database and an Arms Register on Light Weapons in Africa. The workshop will take place in Accra. The workshop is part of recommendations made in Bamako, Mali in March 1999 during the ECOWAS Ministerial meeting on the modalities for the implementation of the Programme for Coordination and Assistance for Security and Development (PCASED). It will seek to determine the functionning and operational elements of the database and arms register; establish the nature of data, its source and consignees, and the database users; and get ECOWAS Member States, and all potential members to understand the importance of transparency, confidence and security-building as well as the objectives in the framework of a moratorium regime. When operational, the database is expected to collect and store information on the flow of small arms in the West African sub-region so as to establish an electronic history of conflict-prevention efforts, including the strategies, successes, failures and development involved. The database will also monitor the flow of small arms to easily determine any destabilising accumulation of light weapons in the sub-region, including information on the holdings of each Member State; and consolidate data for statistical, research and information purposes. The Moratorium on Light Weapons in West Africa is an ECOWAS initiative to curb the increase of light weapons and ammunition which, though not the cause of intra- and inter-State conflicts, are used to fuel the crises in the sub-region. To implement the moratorium on small arms, the PCASED mechanism was established as a practical demonstration of the pro-disarmament momentum to checkmate the level of insecurity in the ECOWAS sub-region. The recent open destruction of firearms in Liberia, and the on-going process for a similar event in Sierra Leone after the July 1999 Lomé peace pact between rebel forces and the Sierra Leonean Government are proof of ECOWAS’ commitment to a culture of peace and security in its Member States. In its pursuit of peace through conflict prevention, it is believed that the application of Information Technology holds numerous advantages for ECOWAS. For instance, the development of a database in itself, will encourage intra- and extra-regional contributions through the provision of multi-platform access which can substantially enrich the tools to collect information on light weapons and small arms. Also, the database which should be made available on the internet would, over a period of time, become an electronic history of the conflict prevention effort, not only in the form of data, but also in its strategies, failures, successes and developments.