Regional Security Officials Attend Workshop on Stockpile Management

Plans to develop national strategies for stockpile management and periodic weapons destruction in the region, are to get underway soon, following a two-day Firearms Destruction and Stockpile Management Workshop, held at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, in Kingston, from April 28 to 29.
Technical advisers from the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (UN-LiREC), who organised the workshop, are expected to support the Government and other Caribbean states in carrying out national baseline assessments to determine needs and priorities for national action plans, to strengthen firearms stockpile security and put in place systems for efficient firearms disposal.
This initiative complements UN-LiREC assistance for training law enforcement officials in techniques to combat illicit arms trafficking as well as broader United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) efforts to improve public security and prevent violence.
It is being funded by a grant from the United States Department of State’s Office for Weapons Removal and Abatement.
Acting Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of National Security, Ms. Dianne McIntosh, whose address was read by the Ministry’s National Technical Advisor, Mr. Woodrow Smith, at the closing of the seminar, pointed out that the illicit possession and trafficking of firearms in and through the Caribbean has been recognised as a trigger of the range of illicit activities that plague the region, noting that the awareness raising workshop “is a step in the right direction,” in addressing this problem.
Director of UN-LiREC, Ms. C. M