OpenLegislation

Division 2 Selection of implementing agency and coordination with other relevant funding initiatives

United Kingdom

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SEESAC is a joint initiative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the RCC, and as such is the focal point for SALW-related activities in South-East Europe. As the executive arm of the Regional Implementation Plan on Combating the Proliferation of SALW, SEESAC has been working since 2002 with national and international stakeholders in South-East Europe on implementing a holistic approach to SALW control through the execution of a wide spectrum of activities including: the facilitation of strategic and operational regional cooperation, supporting policy development and capacity enhancement for institutions, awareness-raising and SALW collection campaigns, stockpile management, surplus reduction, and improved marking and tracing capabilities, as well as improved arms-exports control. In this way, SEESAC has acquired a unique capacity and experience implementing multi-stakeholder regional interventions against the shared political and economic background of the partners in the region, ensuring national and regional ownership and the long-term sustainability of its actions and establishing itself as the primary regional authority in the SALW control field.

SEESAC continues to maintain bilateral and multilateral channels of communication with all relevant actors and organisations. In that regard, SEESAC continues to serve as the Secretariat of the Regional Steering Group for SALW (RSG). In addition, SEESAC is the Secretariat of the Regional Approach to Stockpile Reduction (RASR) initiative. SEESAC is also part of the SALW and mine action (‘MA’) coordination meetings, an informal coordination mechanism on SALW control activities involving NATO, the Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and SEESAC. SEESAC regularly contributes to relevant regional fora. SEESAC continues to maintain a wide network of formal and informal partnerships with organisations such as the Centre for Security Cooperation of the Regional Arms Control Verification and Implementation Assistance Centre (RACVIAC) and the OSCE Forum for Security Cooperation (FSC). Regular coordination meetings as well as information and data exchange with other UN agencies such as UNODC and UNODA take place through, inter alia, the UN Coordinating Action on Small Arms (CASA). SEESAC thus serves as a regional hub and focal point for a wide spectrum of issues related to security-sector reform, with a particular focus on SALW control and stockpile management. SEESAC maintains close contact and provides support to relevant Union institutions for a more effective outreach to South-East Europe counterparts, primarily to DG Migration and Home Affairs of the Commission, and Europol, as well as Union-led initiatives such as EMPACT Firearms and the European Firearm Experts (EFE) group.

Based in Belgrade, SEESAC currently operates throughout South-East Europe, with activities in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the Republic of Moldova, as well as limited support to Ukraine and Belarus. In the past, SEESAC also operated in Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania. Regional ownership is ensured through the RCC as well as through the RSG, where representatives of all partners in South-East Europe provide the strategic guidance, initiatives and requests for SEESAC activities.

SEESAC has pioneered an approach based on tackling shared problems through regional initiatives, which has yielded impressive results in South-East Europe not only because of the crucial information-sharing and promotion of healthy regional competition which it sparks, but also because it helps achieve consistent and easily measurable results at national and regional level through a holistic implementation modality. The organisation of the annual RSG meetings and participation by SEESAC in all relevant processes and initiatives provides timely and candid information exchange, strong situational awareness and the foresight necessary to ensure that implementation is not prone to overlap and is in line with the current needs of the governments and the regions as well as with developing trends.

SEESAC grounds all of its activities in counterparts' expressed needs and the collected baseline data, and secures endorsement and political support from national stakeholders as a precondition for action. In addition, all efforts are framed in support of Union-led processes and achievement of Union standards and criteria. SEESAC implemented its previous Union-funded projects with a very high delivery rate of the envisaged activities, delivering sustainable project results by developing and fostering partners' ownership of its projects and activities, and promoting regional coordination, experience and the sharing of best practices, as well as regional research. Its SALW expertise and in-depth knowledge of regional affairs and relevant stakeholders make SEESAC the most suitable implementing partner for this particular action.

The project also complements existing national and regional efforts, seeking maximum synergies. SEESAC will work in combination with the following international assistance efforts:

  • in BiH:

    • the Union project on stockpile management, technical support and ammunition surplus reduction (EU STAR), funded by the short-term component of the Union's Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace and implemented by the UNDP office in Sarajevo; the EU STAR project builds upon the results and lessons learned from the EXPLODE project, which was funded by the Union and implemented by UNDP from April 2013 to November 2016, to continue supporting the establishment of a sustainable stockpile management system in BiH;

    • the project funded by the German Federal Foreign Office focusing on countering illicit arms trafficking (CIAT), assisting the BiH border police as well as the BiH Ministry of Security in building their capacity to identify, prevent, and counter the trafficking of firearms, ammunition and explosives from and through BiH;

    • the coordination mechanism set up by the BiH Ministry of Defence (‘MoD’) and international actors under the coordination of EUFOR Althea in an effort to ensure continuous complementarity of action with the ongoing efforts of the international community to address the issue of surplus stocks of conventional ammunition held by the BiH MoD and in view of any possible future plans for a campaign to collect illegal conventional weapons in BiH.

    To date, significant gains were achieved through tight cooperation and coordination with those three projects, which resulted in more efficient results;

  • in Serbia, the conventional ammunition stockpile management (CASM) project, funded by the United States Department of State, UNDP and the OSCE, is designed to enhance the security and safety of predefined conventional ammunition storage locations and the disposal of reported surplus ammunition;

  • in Montenegro, the Montenegro demilitarization (MONDEM) project, managed by UNDP in partnership with the OSCE, is designed to work on the reduction of counter-proliferation risks through the development of safe and secure conventional ammunition storage infrastructure and management systems, reduction of explosive risk to communities by environmentally benign demilitarisation, the destruction of toxic hazardous waste (liquid rocket propellant) and support for defence reform through the destruction of a limited quantity of heavy weapons systems designated by the MoD of Montenegro;

  • in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the project on the reduction of the risk for proliferation of weapons and ammunition, which aims to increase the security of existing stockpiles of small arms and ammunition, and which is managed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and implemented by the OSCE mission to Skopje;

  • in Kosovo, the firearms and explosives risk mitigation (FERM) project (formerly KOSSAC), which was designed initially to reduce armed violence in Kosovo and increase community safety, and which aims to support the Kosovo stakeholders in controlling the widespread illegal possession and circulation of SALW and, through risk-based management and an evidence-based approach, to minimise the risks of such weapons and explosive materials;

  • regionally, the Regional Security Sector Reform Platform (RSSRP), a well-established resource that delivers quick, effective and demand-driven responses to rule-of-law needs at the technical level across the globe; with a quick deployment mechanism based on SEESAC's unique network of security experts with experience in the area of security-sector reform, RSSRP provides tailor-made assistance with a particular focus on SALW control and gender mainstreaming in security policy.

SEESAC regularly liaises with the OSCE, NATO, Europol, EMPACT and Interpol, as well as with other relevant actors, in order to secure complementarities of action, timeliness of intervention and cost-effectiveness in the use of resources.