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If you really care about sustainable development, you better think about defense

6/7/2016

9 Comments

 
PictureTobias Bock
This is the sixth blog post in a series on official transparency reporting, where it struggles, and the important role civil society often plays in monitoring and improving global understanding of the trade and use of conventional weapons

Picture
Hilary Hurd
​Opaque, unaccountable defense spending threatens to derail the global development agenda.  If the United Nations and its member states are serious about implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, they’re going to have to abandon their exceptional treatment of the defense sector and start asking what countries really spend on their militaries.
 
Since their official adoption in September 2015, the world has in its 17 Sustainable Development Goals a new roadmap for the fight against poverty, inequality, and injustice. Designed to replace the 8 Millennium Development Goals, which expired at the end of 2015, the SDGs are altogether more ambitious in scope and application – aiming for the first time at all states, not just developing countries.
 
Unlike the MDGs, the SDGs also recognize the fundamental nexus between development and security.  Seeing how a country at war is less likely to provide basic services to its people, to attract vital investments, and to develop its infrastructure – the connection is clear.  Relatedly, the OECD changed the scope of “Overseas Development Assistance” in February to include peace and security-related costs, a further testament to how interrelated “development” and “security” have become.
 
For the UN -- tasked with overseeing the SGDs’ implementation -- the question is how to best address security to make the SDGs more successful than their predecessors. While the causes of internal instability are complicated and varied, there is one major -- straightforward -- thing that ought to be considered: start asking countries what they actually spend on their militaries.  
 
When the public has little knowledge and oversight of how valuable defense money is being spent, it’s more likely that key tax income will be wasted and is therefore unavailable for strategic development initiatives.  In some cases, earmarked funding is actually diverted from other sectors, like health and education, and used to buy, at worst, non-functional (which can risk soldiers’ lives) or, at best, unnecessary defense equipment.
 
In 1999’s infamous “arms deal” between South Africa and a number of European defence companies, the initial cost was estimated to be ZAR9.2 billion (US$1.2 billion). Yet by 2005 this had burgeoned to an estimated ZAR66 billion (US$9.1 billion).  This meant that in 2008, for every ZAR spent on providing assistance to South Africa’s AIDS sufferers, an equivalent ZAR7.63 was being spent on financing the arms deal.  
 
Relatedly, in Uganda, an estimated 1700 health centers could have been constructed for the amount of money spent on Russian air superiority fighters – purchased without a plausible end-use or the necessary authorization (or at least knowledge) of Parliament. The government at some point seemed to claim they were needed to fight insurgents in the Great Lakes Region – an oddity considering the fighter jets were designed for air combat and the rebels weren’t flying any planes of their own. 
 
SDG number 16 is calling for “effective, accountable, and transparent institutions at all levels” as a way to promote peace and minimize corruption. Yet the global push for transparency remains highly uneven across sectors leaving defense, arguably one of the most opaque, largely out of view.  Arguments regarding “national security” concerns -- while of course sometimes valid -- have been grossly abused to justify keeping critical information out of the public domain.
 
According to research from Transparency International Defence & Security, 25% of countries do not publish their defense budgets, while 30% of military expenditure is by countries with zero meaningful budget transparency at all.  Perhaps most surprisingly, international organisations like the UN and their member states – keen to be promoting “good governance” – have made little issue of states’ partial reporting.
 
It’s not just the UN and its members of course. As the world’s largest lender, the IMF has also repeatedly acknowledged the consequences of corruption on development and included a series of recommendations for greater transparency.  Yet its recent 2016 report – “Corruption: Costs and Mitigating Strategies” -- fails to reference the defense sector even once.  One wonders how the IMF can effectively monitor public expenditure if it ignores arguably one of the most secretive and, in some cases, expensive sectors.
 
Global defense spending is not only rising—up $675 billion since 2005— it is increasing fastest where standards of governance and levels of transparency are lowest.  The gap between defense spending and public accountability becomes particularly salient when you combine Stockholm Peace and Research Institute’s (SIPRI) new 2015 Trends in World Military Expenditure and Transparency International’s 2015 Government Defence Anti-Corruption Index (GI). This crosscheck reveals, among other things:
 
  • None of the top 10 countries with the highest relative increase in defense spending from 2014-2015 received higher than a D on Transparency International’s Government Defence Anti-Corruption Index, which grades countries on a scale from A (best) to F (worst) for defense transparency and accountability.
  • Of the 41 countries that spent more than 2 percent of their GDP on defense in 2015, none received an A, while only three received a B. 
  • Of the 69 countries that spent more than 5 percent of their government budgets on defense in 2015, only five received an A or B. 
 
SIPRI also found that reallocating only around 10% of world military spending would be sufficient to realize some of the main SDG goals. Countries could easily find that money, without even altering their military ambitions, if less money was wasted on and lost through defense corruption.
 
Yet across the global defense sector, a lack of transparency and accountability pervades. From arms export controls to budgetary planning, citizens are often denied critical information regarding what their governments are doing. If more isn’t done to ensure minimum standards of transparency and accountability in defense, the SDGs will remain a neat list of aspirations in a more militarized, insecure, world. 

Tobias Bock is Deputy Director of the International Defence and Security Programme at Transparency International and a Forum on the Arms Trade-listed expert. Hilary Hurd is Research and Advocacy Officer in the Programme.
​
9 Comments

Improving Transparency and Seeking Control over the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons

6/6/2016

2 Comments

 
GoldringNatalie Goldring
This is the fifth blog post in a series on official transparency reporting, where it struggles, and the important role civil society often plays in monitoring and improving global understanding of the trade and use of conventional weapons.

The United Nations is not known for its command of acronyms. So when countries reached agreement on an instrument to control the illicit arms trade, its unwieldy title was, “The United Nations Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat, and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All its Aspects.” In this post, I’ll use the shorthand “Programme of Action”, or “PoA’.
 
The Programme of Action was agreed in 2001 after a great deal of discord and acrimony, and with considerable uncertainty about its prospects. Although it still needs strengthening, fifteen years later, the PoA is a pillar of the nascent regime to exercise better control over the international arms trade. The PoA recommends action on national, regional, and global levels. The assembled governments committed themselves to addressing the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons by developing or strengthening norms to prevent, combat, and eradicate the illicit trade, manufacturing of and trafficking in small arms and light weapons, with a particular emphasis on post-conflict situations and excessive and destabilizing accumulations of small arms and light weapons.
 
From 6-10 June, governments will gather at the United Nations to discuss progress in implementing the Programme of Action, at the sixth Biennial Meeting of States (BMS6). One key area for improvement is taking advantage of potential points of synergy between the Programme of Action and the Arms Trade Treaty; another is fully integrating ammunition into the Programme of Action.
 
As part of the implementation of the Programme of Action, States are requested to report on their activities in many substantive and procedural areas. They’re asked, for example, to report on whether small arms and light weapons (SALW) are manufactured in their countries, and if so, what laws, regulations, and administrative procedures regulate SALW manufacture. They are also asked to report on issues such as stockpile security, marking and tracing weapons, and procedures governing brokering, among other issues.
 
As of 1 June, more than 70 countries have reported on their PoA activities over the last two years, including each of the top ten conventional arms suppliers identified by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and six of the leading recipients. The country reports provide a useful starting point for discussion during the conference, as do the proposals circulated in advance by several countries and regional organizations, which are available at: www.un.org/disarmament/bms6/
 
The success of the conference, of course, should not be measured by the papers or the discussions. In the end, what matters is whether States have the political will and the financial and other resources to actually control the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons and decrease the enormous toll caused by armed violence.
 
Dr. Natalie Goldring is a Senior Fellow and Adjunct Full Professor with the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. She also represents the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy at the United Nations on conventional weapons.

2 Comments

The ATT and Transparency

5/23/2016

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PictureRachel Stohl
This is the fourth blog post in a series on official transparency reporting, where it struggles, and the important role civil society often plays in monitoring and improving global understanding of the trade and use of conventional weapons.

Picture
Paul Holtom
Increasing transparency and oversight of the international arms trade are at the heart of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). Under the ATT, States Parties have three reporting obligations. First, States Parties must provide a one-off report that outlines the measures it has undertaken to implement the Treaty; although this has to be updated if new measures are undertaken. Second, States Parties have to make available an annual report on their authorized or actual exports and imports of conventional arms, which could contain the same information as provided to the UN Register. Third, States Parties are encouraged to report on measures they have taken to address the diversion of arms. 
 
The First Conference of States Parties (CSP1) took note of provisional reporting templates for the initial report on measures to implement the ATT and the annual report on arms exports and imports. However, The ATT does not require States Parties to utilize a standardized reporting form. The ATT requires States Parties to provide useful information on implementation of the ATT with regards to arms transfer control systems and responsible transfer decisions. States, international organizations, and civil society will utilize these reports to monitor ATT implementation and better understand how States Parties interpret and understand the treaty’s provisions and obligations. Reports also provide insights into how States have incorporated the ATT into their national systems. They can highlight best practices, lessons learned, and model legislation that other countries can utilize in the development or enhancement of their own national systems. Additionally, reports provide opportunities to match assistance requests with available resources. In these ways, reporting allows for accurate monitoring and assessment of ATT implementation by States and by civil society – and can provide a greater understanding of the global arms trade overall.

States Parties considered the production of reporting templates a useful endeavor to assist with the provision of information on implementation and transfers. Thirty-five States Parties to-date are known to have used the provisional reporting template for their initial report on measures to implement the ATT. A further six States Parties used their completed ATT-BAP Baseline Assessment Survey and France provided a narrative report.

For the annual report – the first of which is due on 31 May 2016 – States Parties may utilize the provisional reporting template or their submission to the UN Register of Conventional Arms (Register), including the separate form for additional information on transfers of small arms and light weapons. It will be important to encourage States Parties to provide information on authorizations and actual exports and imports for all categories required under the ATT, including the number of units transferred, a description of these items transferred and information on the end-user.

​The annual report is crucial for getting a global picture of what types of weapons States are importing and exporting. The annual report will therefore go a long way in helping identify trends in the global arms trade, if the reports are made public and States are comprehensive in the provision of information.
 
In the very near future – potentially at the Second Conference of States Parties (CSP2) in August – States Parties will need to consider how to best ensure universal reporting.  CSP2 will also be asked to decide if the adoption of reporting templates is the best approach for achieving this goal. States Parties also need to consider whether to develop a reporting template for the voluntary report on diversion, which could help to improve accountability and mitigate potentially harmful arms transfers. Comprehensive reporting will lead to increased transparency of the systems governing arms transfers and how the provisions of the Treaty are applied to international arms transfers. In the end, robust reporting has the opportunity to contribute to greater accountability in the global arms trade and encourage States to undertake more transparent and responsible arms transfers.

​Rachel Stohl is Senior Associate, Managing Across Boundaries, at the Stimson Center. Paul Holtom is Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations at Coventry University (UK). Together, they developed the ATT-Baseline Assessment Project.
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Declining transparency in reporting on arms trade and military spending: some observations

5/17/2016

2 Comments

 
PictureAude Fleurant, and the SIPRI arms transfers and military expenditure team
This is the third blog post in a series on official transparency reporting, where it struggles, and the important role civil society often plays in monitoring and improving global understanding of the trade and use of conventional weapons. 

In the first week of May, the US State Department started to add data on US arms exports in 2015 to the UN Register of Conventional Arms (UNROCA). Though still in the process of being completed the report reveals that 36 M-ATV armoured vehicles were delivered to Saudi Arabia. That is useful to know considering that these vehicles are used in the forceful Saudi intervention in Yemen. However, closer examination of other sources suggests that many more M-ATVs must have been delivered to Saudi Arabia in 2015 or 2014. Why are they not reported? We don’t know, but this is a recent example of how incomplete government reporting continues to hinder well informed discussions on arms trade and military expenditure and highlights the continuing efforts made by NGOs and research institutes to collect and disseminate relevant information and analysis.
 
Over the past few years, a worrisome trend of problems in reporting for military spending and the global arms trade and, consequently, reduced transparency has been observed by the team of researchers at SIPRI in charge of maintaining the databases and present global trends. SIPRI relies on open sources for its databases on military spending and arms transfers. Each year, the team collects, processes and then publishes new figures on national and regional military spending and arms transfers, with accompanying analysis of regional and global trends.
 
Intermittent and reduced reporting by states and international organisations is an issue for the team. However, it is far from being the only one that we face when harvesting data. Indeed, in several instances, there is reporting, but the quality of the data is highly questionable, resulting in lack of clarity about what the figures cover and what definitions are used to achieve them. For instance, the team has noted discrepancies between figures from different government reports originating from the same countries – ´such as with discrepancies between reporting by the Pentagon and the U.S. report to UNROCA in 2014 - as well as important delays in publishing yearly reports.
 
Military spending may fare better than the arms trade in terms of transparency, as countries such as Nigeria and Kazakhstan have started providing detailed figures online. However, there is a counter trend of countries that have stopped publishing their figures altogether. For its 2015 new military expenditure data, the team decided against presenting an estimate of regional military spending for the Middle East. This decision can partly be explained by the fact that Syria and Yemen are waging wars on their territory, which disrupt regular activities of state institutions such as reporting on budgets. However, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which we can assume to be two large regional spenders, do not publish their military budgets at all. In the case of Saudi Arabia, the third largest global military spender in 2015, a single budget figure is published every year, but there are no details about what it covers, making it very opaque.
 
Problems of reporting and timeliness are also observed in the global north, especially for arms transfers. Indeed, the publication of the European Union Report on arms exports of member states, which was initially designed to increase transparency on this matter within the European Union, has been severely delayed two years in a row -- the one covering 2014 having been published in early May 2016. The quality of the figures presented in the EU report is also highly questionable. Several states, such as the United Kingdom and Germany, report export licences values without providing any figures for the actual deliveries of the weapons for which the licences were issued. The use of global licences also injects greater opacity into the arms trade.
 
Some of these problems are not new, and SIPRI has designed alternative ways to circumvent them - to a certain degree. For instance, a network of national experts supports the data collection process by providing details of coverage and definition in the case of military spending. Extra research is led in-house to assess official figures by comparing them to other sources and/or to fill gaps by using trustworthy secondary sources. When no figure is available or is deemed too unreliable, the team uses estimates that are then clearly identified as such, and revised when new information is available.
 
Despite these difficulties, SIPRI updates its databases and analysis yearly, doing its part to inform civil society, and to support positive actions. However, weaker reporting, discrepancies in figures presented, lack of definitions and delays in publishing the reports reduce decision-makers' accountability as well as oversight of independent auditing agencies and parliamentarians. 

Aude Fleurant is Director of SIPRI's Arms and Military Expenditure Programme. The programme team contributed to this blog post.

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Progress and Gaps in Security Assistance Transparency

5/13/2016

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PictureColby Goodman
This is the second blog post in a series on official transparency reporting, where it struggles, and the important role civil society often plays in monitoring and improving global understanding of the trade and use of conventional weapons. Clear here for the first post.

Over the past decade and a half, the United States has greatly expanded its investment and involvement in the security sectors of other countries, moving from more than $5 billion in FY (Fiscal Year) 2001 to more than $19 billion in FY 2015, to help address a range of U.S. security concerns. This investment, often-called security assistance, can be a helpful tool to reduce security threats from violent actors and help make security forces more accountable to the civilian population. However, done poorly it can also undermine stability or have no effect at all.

According to a RAND study last year, U.S. security assistance has several risks. It can undermine legitimate governance, exacerbate the balance of power within the state, give weapons to unintended users, and abet human rights violations. There is also the risk of moral hazard. Since transnational terrorism is not always high on a foreign country’s security concerns, the incentive is also real for some countries to make slow progress in addressing terrorism in order to keep the aid flowing.

Unlike other forms of U.S. foreign assistance, much of the U.S. security assistance is not published on the State Department’s “Foreign Aid Dashboard” or in the International Aid Transparency Initiative registry, making it nearly impossible for journalists, civil society, and policy makers to help identify the specific risks and steer U.S. taxpayer money to more effective programs. When there is information, sometimes that data is widely different than what the Defense Department has told Congress.

For instance, the Foreign Aid Dashboard indicates that the Pentagon allocated money to Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and Iraq through the Section 1206 authority in FY 2011. However, Congressional Research Service reports don’t list those countries receiving any Section 1206 funds for that year. In the case of Cote d’Ivoire, the Dashboard indicates that Section 1206 funding is addressing health issues instead of counterterrorism issues.

This gap in public information on State and Defense Department assistance efforts prompted the creation of the Security Assistance Monitor (SAM). SAM is the first, and most comprehensive resource to house all publicly available, official data on U.S. security assistance in one place. SAM searches through a diverse range of U.S. government reports, submits Freedom of Information requests, and interviews government officials to obtain sought-after data, including from the growing amount of Pentagon military aid.

Our interactive online databases covering military aid, economic aid, arms sales, and military training provide journalists, civil society, and policy makers in the United States and abroad with key information needed to conduct oversight of this assistance. We also analyze the data to identify important trends and potential concerns and publish our findings on the Security Assistance Monitor blog or in outside sources.

However, there is still some key U.S. security assistance data and information that is not yet available to the public. Unlike the State Department, the Defense Department does not provide a public, comprehensive budget justification to Congress for the next year that shows the type of security assistance it plans for each country and the related costs. There is also no reporting yet to Congress with a full accounting of how the Defense Department spent its money for more than 50 security assistance authorities the previous year.

Improved access to quality, timely, usable information has many benefits. Detailed information on military and police aid helps the U.S. government coordinate security assistance efforts within the State and Defense Departments. It also helps identify where there may be duplicative efforts or an under focus on key issues. Without such basic transparency, it’s also nearly impossible to begin to assess whether or not the United States is spending its money on the right activities and ensuring that such lethal aid doesn’t abet human rights and undermine stability. 

Colby Goodman is Director of the Security Assistance Monitor.
 



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Deadline Approaches on Landmine and Cluster Munition Reporting

4/28/2016

1 Comment

 
PictureJeff Abramson
In recent decades, international agreements on conventional weapons trade and use have recognized the value of greater transparency, in part by creating reporting mechanisms and requirements. A short list of such agreements, whether legally binding or simply voluntary, include the UN Register on Conventional Arms, the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, the Mine Ban Treaty, the Program of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons, the Convention on Cluster Munitions, and the more recent Arms Trade Treaty. With the creation of these and other agreements, many government officials now complain of reporting fatigue, drawing into question the value and functioning of many transparency measures. In a series of blog posts over the next two months, Forum on the Arms Trade-listed experts will examine official transparency reporting, where it struggles, and the important role civil society often plays in monitoring and improving global understanding of the trade and use of conventional weapons.

April 30 marks the annual reporting deadline for the Mine Ban Treaty and the Convention on Cluster Munitions. These reports provide a wealth of government-certified information on weapons stockpiles and their destruction, contaminated land and its clearance, measures to protect and assist those endangered or already harmed by these indiscriminate weapons, as well as national laws and implementing measures. Such official reports make it much easier to track progress as well as hold governments accountable to treaty mandates, as well as broader efforts to promote conventional weapons control.

In times of conflict, they can also assist in understanding weapons flows and potential dangers. For example, the appearance of East German PPM-2 landmines in Yemen suggests that new supplies (of old landmines) are coming into the country because those types of mines had not been previously reported by Yemen as part of its stockpile or contamination. Similarly, Ukraine’s most recent transparency report indicates that hundreds of landmines have fallen out of their control, stockpiled in Crimea before the separation of the region.

These reports alone, however, often need to be augmented by additional information, typically gathered and analyzed by members of civil society. The Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor -- with its weapons use research led by Human Rights Watch -- as well as many other groups contribute to tracking supplies of landmines and cluster munitions and documenting their use.  This is critical, for example, in  places such as Syria and Yemen where these weapons have recently been used and are often supplied by countries not party to the treaties, and therefore outside the treaties’ reporting regimes. Importantly, this collective work has contributed to growing international efforts to cut off arms supplies to Saudi Arabia -- in part because of Saudi-led coalition use of cluster munition in civilian areas.

With the upcoming reporting deadline, states have the opportunity, and obligation, to again contribute to improved transparency. Their collective record, however, is a bit disappointing. When last year’s Landmine Monitor and Cluster Munition Monitor were published, 94 States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty had failed to meet their annual reporting obligations and more than three dozen States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions had failed to meet their initial or annual reporting mandates. Since then, Mine Ban Treaty members have adopted a new guide to assist in reporting.
As is common at this point in the year, the number of reports available on the official treaty websites is low (Mine Ban Treaty, Convention on Cluster Munitions). Hopefully the upcoming intersessional meeting on the Mine Ban Treaty will spur countries to submit their reports before that meeting opens on May 19. For the first time, however, there will be no intersessional meeting for the Convention on Cluster Munitions. There is a danger that reporting will lag without that mid-year spur to action.

An additional opportunity, however, exists for states that have not yet joined the treaties to demonstrate commitment to transparency and treaty objectives by submitting voluntary reports, as a number of states have done in the past. The United States, in particular, has expressed a goal of eventually joining the Mine Ban Treaty. Given the size of the US stockpile, and lack of transparency in the progress of destroying it, submitting such a report would be an important step in demonstrating U.S. commitment to the treaty.

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    About

    The "Looking Ahead" series features comments concerning short- to medium-term trends related to the arms trade, security assistance, and weapons use. Typically about 500-1000 words, each comment is written by an expert listed on the Forum on the Arms Trade related to topics of each expert's choosing. 

    Inclusion on the Forum on the Arms Trade expert list does not indicate agreement with or endorsement of the opinions of others. Institutional affiliation is indicated for identification purposes only.

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