Division 4.1.3 Project activities

In 2018, CAR established the Technical Support Unit (TSU), a unit formed to deliver training and mentoring activities to national authorities in the conflict-affected states in which iTrace Project operates. Those training and mentoring activities are designed to boost national counter-diversion initiatives across the board by providing instruction and capacity development on conventional arms tracing, marking and record keeping, following ITI established procedures, of seized and captured illicit conventional arms, and PSSM assessments that are designed to identify and address diversion risks at source. CAR will provide specialist, needs-assessed training on the full spectrum of activities listed above to local partners and, where required, to peace support staff, including UN and EU Missions and UN sanctions monitoring groups/panels. In this respect, the iTrace Project will continue to respond directly to the action listed in the EU SALW Strategy, which calls for EU support to 'UN panels that monitor arms embargoes' and for consideration of 'ways of improving access to their findings on diversion and illicit firearms and SALW for arms export control purposes'. Training under the iTrace Project will build on a range of services offered by CAR since 2014, which has proved critical to supporting local partners in conflict-affected states, aiding UN panels, and also to securing greater access to iTrace field investigation teams. The project will deploy staff from its field investigation teams and TSU to instruct, at progressively more technical levels, with regard to:

1. (a)

   an introduction to conventional arms data collection, with reference to specific cases;

2. (b)

   basic conventional arms identification and effective documentation techniques;

3. (c)

   evidence collection standard operating procedures and the evidentiary chain of custody;

4. (d)

   the requirements of long-range, regional, and international investigations;

5. (e)

   the implementation of the International Tracing Instrument; where appropriate, authorities in partner countries will be trained and encouraged to initiate trace requests;

6. (f)

   international arms tracing and arms tracing systems (notably Interpol and Europol);

7. (g)

   the use of 'big data' and trend analysis; and

8. (h)

   avenues for technical assistance (international) and law enforcement intervention.

Those activities will be conducted alongside iTrace field investigations—including joint investigations (mentoring) conducted with national government authorities.