The 25th anniversary of the Security Council’s first consideration of the ‘Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict’ and adoption of its first thematic resolution on the issue coincided with the 75th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions. Rather than standing as a moment to herald the achievements associated with these milestones, these anniversaries coincided with a “resoundingly grim” state of protection of civilians.
Reading of the Week: Protection of Civilians in the Context of Peace Operations
Stimson
In the context of the 2025 Munich Security Conference (MSC), it is critical that leaders, understandably consumed with state-centric geopolitical disruptions, pay close attention to transnational and systemic risks – one of the most significant of which is the food-climate conflict nexus.
Roots of Resilience: Building Peace in an Era of Food and Climate Shocks
Istituto Affari Internazionali and the Center for Climate and Security
The fall of the Assad regime was met with relief and hope by Syrians of all backgrounds, including even some former loyalists disillusioned with Assad’s inability to address Syria’s worsening crises. However, Syrians are now faced with a new government whose leadership remains largely unfamiliar
Syrias post-Assad honeymoon is over. Now the hard work of state-building begins
Atlantic Council
On January 15, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani announced that a cease-fire agreement — mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States — had been reached between Hamas and Israel to pause fighting in Gaza and begin a series of steps to end of the war. The agreement details three phases toward immediate humanitarian relief, hostage and prisoner exchange, redeployment of Israeli forces, and negotiations toward a longer-term end-of-hostilities and reconstruction of Gaza.
Reading of the Week: Israel, Hamas Reach Gaza Cease-fire Deal: What Happens Now?
United States Institute of Peace
With blue-helmet deployments shrinking, and facing political and financial headwinds, it may seem that the heyday of multilateral peacekeeping is over. But at UN headquarters in New York, the discussions about the subject are not quite so fatalistic.
Fresh Thinking about Peace Operations at the UN
International Crisis Group
Faced with various threats and conflicts ranging from the persistence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the danger of a wider regional war to the rise of nonstate actors that systematically use violence in internal and external conflicts, today’s Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) countries are drawing in China and Russia to compete with the United States over military presence, arms sales, energy and trade ties, and security roles.
Russia in the Middle East and North Africa: Arms, Power Projection and Nuclear Diplomacy
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Iraq is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Throughout the country, communities are seeing their livelihoods and everyday lives increasingly disrupted by scorching temperatures, water scarcity, extended droughts and dust storms. While the impacts of the climate crisis are widely felt, they can be especially pernicious in conflict-affected contexts as climate change exacerbates existing vulnerabilities and increases the risk of insecurity.
Community dialogue as a peacebuilding tool Insights from environmental dialogue in the Nineveh Plains of Iraq
SIPRI Research Policy Paper
China closely aligns its global security expansion with its economic strategy, particularly in Africa’s Maghreb and Sahel regions. This relationship has historical roots, with China beginning engagement there as early as the 1950s by supporting national movements and decolonization efforts.
Chinas military and private security inroads in Africa
Geopolitical Intelligence Services
Many fragile and conflict-affected states (FCAS) face significant challenges related to energy access, which exacerbates instability and hinders development. Reliance on fossil fuel supply chains - frequently controlled by conflict parties - can also undermine the peacebuilding and peacekeeping efforts of UN missions often operating in these contexts.
Why renewable energy matters in the context of peace and stability
Clingendael
The war in Ukraine has exacerbated the divide between the West and East. The latter, increasingly referred to as the Global South, is not a homogenous entity but rather a collection of groups of countries as well as separate big actors, such as India and Indonesia, that are motivated by varying degrees of anti-Westernism
For Gulf States, Gaza War Overshadows Ukraine
Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington
The war on Lebanon, while selective and impacting some sectors less than others, has left no sector untouched. Niche businesses in the real economy — those small, specialized enterprises that often represent the heart of the community — are more vulnerable than large enterprises
From Struggle to Strength: Lebanons Agro-entrepreneurs in Uncertain Times
Executive
The Central African Republic (CAR) is highly exposed to the impacts of climate change due to socioecological vulnerabilities and ongoing insecurity. Drivers of vulnerability include the absence of state authority, natural resource mismanagement, and low household and community resilience. Although the security situation has improved in recent years, it remains volatile
Climate, Peace and Security Fact Sheet: Central African Republic
Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
The longstanding shadow conflict between Iran and Israel has entered a new, more dangerous phase of open confrontation. For decades, both nations engaged in covert operations and proxy warfare in what was known as the “campaign between wars.” Hamas’ devastating attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, upended this dynamic.
Will Iran Withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?
Texas National Security Review
Since the Israel-Gaza war erupted one year ago, the Middle East has been gripped by escalating conflict, humanitarian disaster and regional destabilisation. Despite ongoing international efforts to broker a ceasefire, tensions remain high.
Amid this turmoil, key regional players remain deeply concerned about an uncontrollable escalation. Saudi Arabia, in particular, finds itself in a delicate position: it seeks to maintain solidarity with the Palestinian cause while keeping perspectives for a pragmatic engagement with Israel on the table.
In Light of Regional Escalation: Saudi Arabias Not Alone Approach
Brussels International Center
The African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS), which replaced AMISOM in 2022, is a UN peacekeeping mission with the mandate to support the Somali Security Forces (SSF) in combating al-Shabaab and securing the country. As ATMIS is set to conclude by December 2024, discussions are underway for a follow-on mission, the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM), to ensure continued support and prevent a security vacuum.
ATMIS Transition and Post-ATMIS Security Arrangements in Somalia
International Peace Institute
Despite the operational and intelligence successes of Israel in Lebanon in September 2024, a troubling question hangs over the country: Who bears responsibility for the failure to anticipate the Oct. 7 Hamas assault that led also to the war in Lebanon and on other fronts? Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his intelligence chiefs appear locked in a blame game, with each side offering conflicting accounts of whether warnings were issued and, if so, why they were not acted upon
Reading of the Week: Israels Oct. 7 early warning failure: Who is to blame?
Texas National Security Review
In July, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the war in Gaza and the future of the Middle East. Afterward, Harris stressed her commitment to a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians-in her words, “the only path that ensures Israel remains a secure Jewish and democratic state, and one that ensures Palestinians can finally realize the freedom, security, and prosperity that they rightly deserve.”
She is hardly alone in this sentiment.
A Two-State Solution That Can Work
Foreign Affairs
This report offers a contemporary analysis of the operations, the organization, the involvement in illicit economies and the financing of the Anglophone separatist armed groups in the Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon, as well as their relationships with civilian communities.
Reading of the Week: Non-State Armed Groups and Illicit Economies in West Africa: Anglophone separatists
Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project
In June 2024, ESD got the chance to sit down with General (ret.) Thomas Antonius Middendorp, of the Royal Netherlands Armed Forces to discuss his thoughts on the links between climate change and security challenges, as well as the benefits to be gained by modern militaries through the adoption of ‘green’ technologies. Gen. Middendorp has witnessed first-hand the effects of and security risks posed by climate change during his time in uniform.
Reading of the Week: The Climate General - Weighing the impact of climate change on security and how militaries should evolve
European Security & Defence
The United States, Egypt, and Qatar are making a ‘last gasp’ diplomatic push to secure a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. Mediators say that the latest truce offer, which they hope to finalize in Cairo this week, ‘bridges’ several contentious details that had thwarted previous talks. At the time of writing, the prospects for the negotiations look bleak. The terms of the ceasefire have yet to be fully disclosed, but they appear to have veered from earlier frameworks offered in May and endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2735.
The real schism in the Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks is about who decides Gazas future
Chatham House
A series of violent events over the past week have taken the Middle East closer to the brink of all-out war. The latest of these was the killing, on 31 July, of Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas’s political wing and a high-level guest of the Iranian government, in the Iranian capital Tehran on the day of the new Iranian president’s inauguration
Reading of the Week: Staying the Guns of August: Avoiding All-out Regional War in the Middle East
International Crisis Group
Established in 2013 by the UN Security Council, the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) aimed to stabilize the situation in northern Mali, support the political transition, protect civilians, and promote human rights amidst ongoing conflict and instability. The mission’s mandate evolved over its ten-year tenure to address the changing political and security landscape, leading to its withdrawal at the request of the Malian government in 2023.
Emerging Lessons from MINUSMAs Experience in Mali
International Peace Institute
On June 25, Haitians in Port-au-Prince watched closely as several hundred Kenyan police officers, clad in uniform, filed to the tarmac from a Kenya Airways plane. The officers’ arrival had been in the works for more than a year and a half, since the former Haitian prime minister, Ariel Henry, requested international support for the Haitian police in the face of a then-unprecedented uprising by gangs in the fall of 2022.
Why Kenyas deployment wont solve all of Haitis problems
Brookings
As tensions between Israel and Hezbollah escalate, the specter of a full-scale war, with the potential to draw in the United States and Iran, demands the US’ immediate attention. The Biden-Harris Administration has tasked, in response, White House Senior Advisor Amos Hochstein with the responsibility of mediating efforts to de-escalate the conflict and bring stability to the Lebanon-Israel border
Securing Lebanon to Prevent a larger Hezbollah-Israel war and wider escalation
American Task Force on Lebanon and The Middle East Institute
A new major battle broke out in the North Darfur city of El Fasher, which has been surrounded since April by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). El Fasher is the only capital city in Darfur that is still controlled by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). The SAF, backed by its allies, managed to conduct multiple offensive maneuvers on RSF strongholds in rural territories in North Darfur. During the clashes, the SAF claimed to have inflicted several casualties on the RSF, including killing the local operation commander.
Fighting deepens around El Fasher in Sudan, al-Shabaab loses territory in Somalia, and police crackdown on tax-related protests in Kenya
Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED)
This latest MEAC Research into Action report examines the operations and limitations of peace systems in MENA. Multi-tiered peace systems, comprising institutions and mechanisms from hyper-local to state and regional, work to mitigate and resolve conflicts throughout the region. Through a conversation with Dr. Ahram, the report summarizes this academic research, distills its policy implications, and proposes practical and realistic approaches to conflict resolution beyond MENA.
In Search of a Middle East and North Africa Peace System
The United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research
A multi-sided battle is raging in Sudan’s long-stricken Darfur region. Hostilities centre on El Fasher, capital of North Darfur and home to the Sudanese army’s last stronghold in the region. Thousands of fighters from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which is embroiled in a vicious year-long war with the army, control the town’s northern and eastern districts and have encircled the rest.
Halting the Catastrophic Battle for Sudans El Fasher
International Crisis Group
Since late 2023, the Houthis in Yemen have posed an extraordinary challenge to global shipping. As a result of the Iranian-backed group’s relentless attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea, intended to pressure the United States and its allies over Israel’s war in Gaza, several of the largest international shipping companies have been forced to reroute their vessels around Africa to avoid the sea entirely.
Chinas Do-Nothing Strategy in the Middle East
Foreign Affairs
UNSCR 2719 provides a framework for peace operations led by the African Union (AU) to access UN funding through assessed contributions. This has the potential to make peace operations more effective and sustainable while enhancing African leadership in managing them. It was necessitated in part by a decline of UN peacekeeping and a shift to African-led missions
African Union and United Nations Partnership Key to the Future of Peace Operations in Africa
Africa Center for Strategic Studies
Iran’s unprecedented attack on Israel on April 13 has significantly escalated the tensions between the countries. For the first time, a declared and extensive Iranian military operation was carried out on Israeli territory. Now, the decision on how to respond rests with Israel. A direct war between the two countries now no longer seems unlikely.
The enormous risks and uncertain benefits of an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
The Biden administration has responded positively to Saudi Arabia’s interest in civil nuclear cooperation with the United States—both because such cooperation is a Saudi condition for the normalization of Saudi-Israeli relations, which the administration strongly supports, and because it believes a bilateral civil nuclear partnership can bring important benefits to both countries.
A way forward on a US-Saudi civil nuclear agreement
Brookings
On March 25, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed Resolution 2728, calling for an “immediate” cease-fire in Gaza. The motion’s passage came after weeks of back and forth and posturing among the UNSC’s permanent and rotating members
Reading of the Week: What Does the U.N. Cease-Fire Resolution Mean for the Israel-Gaza War?
United States Institute of Peace
On 8 March, the UN Security Council adopted a UK-drafted resolution calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities in Sudan during the month of Ramadan, a sustainable resolution to the conflict through dialogue, compliance with international humanitarian law and unhindered humanitarian access.
Sudans forgotten war: A new diplomatic push is needed
Chatham House
This week, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) meets to renew the mandate of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) for another year. It has been renewed over 13 times since the mission’s inception in 2011, but this time will be vital.
UNMISS is crucial to free and fair elections in South Sudan
Institute for Security Studies
On February 28, 2004, during the second extraordinary session of the African Union in Sirte, Libya, the continental body adopted the Common African Defence and Security Policy (CADSP), which set out to consolidate a continental architecture capable of advancing peace and security by addressing domestic and foreign threats.
Can the AUs Common African Defence and Security Policy Provide a Pan-African Solution to the Continents Security Challenges?
IPI Global Observatory
In September 2024, the UN will hold the Summit of the Future in New York, bringing together world leaders to “forge a new international consensus” on how to “deliver a better present and safeguard the future.” One of the outcomes of the summit will be a Pact for the Future covering five key areas: sustainable development and financing for development; international peace and security; science, technology and innovation, and digital cooperation; youth and future generations; and transforming global governance.
Summit of the Future: Advancing African Perspectives for a Networked and Inclusive Multilateralism
International Peace Institute
Most Israelis would support a deal if they were sure it would bring them security, but their current skepticism is based on real and urgent concerns about demilitarization given their past experience with Gaza and Lebanon.
Without Enforcement, Talk of Two States Is Hollow
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
This paper explores the Youth, Peace, and Security (YPS) Agenda’s impact on youth involvement in conflict resolution, focusing on Euro-Mediterranean regions, specifically post-Arab Spring Yemen and Libya. The YPS Agenda emphasizes five pillars: participation, protection, violence prevention, partnerships, and disengagement/reintegration.
Meaningful inclusion? Enhancing the youth, peace and security agenda in euro-mediterranean conflict resolution
EuroMeSCo
At the upcoming African Union (AU) summit from 15-19 February, 10 new countries will take their seats on the Peace and Security Council (PSC) for two-year terms. As the AU’s primary decision-making organ on security matters, the strength of its members determines how effectively the PSC will respond to the plethora of challenges facing the continent.
Does Africas Peace and Security Council need stronger members?
Institute for Security Studies
The year 2023 was a landmark in terms of assessing new challenges to the universalization of human rights. The anniversaries of three key instruments provided an opportunity to reflect on the human rights landscape and how the human rights framework is being operationalized.
Reading Of The Week: Rethinking human rights and responses to organized crime
The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
In the years after the 9/11 attacks, a new threat loomed large in the minds of policymakers and the public: the dirty bomb. This term describes a radiological weapon that used an explosive to disperse radioactive material over a limited area. A dirty bomb is far less powerful than a nuclear bomb, but it is easier and cheaper to assemble and can cause tremendous panic and disruption.
Why the World Should Still Worry About Dirty Bombs
Council On Foreign Relations
Past peace processes in Israel and Palestine failed to offer long-term solutions to the conflict, but they showed what makes negotiations work. In the latest round of hostilities in Gaza, key Arab governments are uniquely positioned to leverage relationships with all parties to lay out the conditions that could broker a lasting peace.
Arab Peace Initiative II: How Arab Leadership Could Design a Peace Plan in Israel and Palestine
Carnegie Endowment For international Peace
In October this year, Africa’s air force chiefs of staff and air force industry representatives gathered in Senegal. They agreed the continent urgently needed to develop sophisticated air defences in response to a growing threat – the proliferation of unmanned aerial systems (UAS), or drones.
Drones as weapons. Africa needs better data to anticipate risk
Institute for Security Studies
An estimated 82 percent of the record 149 million Africans facing acute food insecurity are in conflict-affected countries underscoring that conflict continues to be the primary driver of Africa’s food crisis. An estimated 149 million Africans are facing acute food insecurity—an increase of 12 million people from a year ago. This equates to a risk category of 3 or higher (Crisis, Emergency, and Catastrophe) on the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) scale of 1 to 5.
Conflict Remains the Dominant Driver of Africas Food Crisis
Africa Center for Strategic Studies
That is one of many questions that have arisen in the days since Hamas’ Oct. 7 incursion into Israel and attacks on Israeli forces and civilians. The absence of early warnings from data collected via sensors, cameras, and surveillance drones along the border’s “smart fence,” as well as the penetration of the Iron Dome missile defense system, has led to a sense that Israel experienced a tragic “high-tech failure.”
The October 7 Hamas attack: An Israeli overreliance on technology?
Middle East Institute
There have been three major waves of coups in post-independence Africa. The first, between the 1960s and 1970s, saw the overthrow of liberation leaders whose political visions conflicted with the interests of major colonial powers. The second wave from 1990 to 2001 followed the failure of 1980s African leaders, mostly military, to embrace democracy and meet citizens’ needs. Since 2021, the third wave – in Sudan, Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger and Gabon – has differed from those in previous decades.
Reading of the Week: Africas three waves of coups
Institute for Security Studies
There are many ways in which technology could help to counter the diversion of conventional weapons. Yet despite some discussions in international meetings on conventional arms control, we see limited evidence of technologies being used to strengthen or enhance efforts to prevent, detect, and investigate the diversion of conventional arms, their ammunition, and parts and components.
Technologies to Counter the Diversion of Small Arms and Light Weapons, and Components of Conventional Weapons
UN Institute for Disarmament Research
What Washington considers de-escalation, Tehran sees as an opportunity to consolidate its nuclear gains, avoid accountability, and position itself to cross the nuclear weapons threshold at a time of its choosing.
Irans Nuclear Diplomacy: Feint and Advance
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Peacekeeping is getting more dangerous. Illicit arms, ammunition, and explosives are key factors in this increasingly hostile environment. The United Nations needs to adapt to ensure the safety of peacekeepers and their ability to implement mandated tasks. The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) illustrates both the possible dangers to current missions as well as lessons learned in efforts to mitigate the impact of illicit arms. This brief reviews MINUSMA’s experiences in these regards.
Peacekeeping in hostile environments: The Impact of illicit arms on MINUSMA
UN Institute for Disarmament Research
On the morning of 22 May, 2023, an artificial intelligence (AI) generated image of an explosion at the Pentagon surfaced online and spread like wildfire throughout social media. Multiple news sources reported and shared the AI-generated image on their platforms. As a result, markets responded to the reports and image, and the S&P 500 index fell in just minutes after its reporting, causing a $500 billion market cap swing, even though this image was quickly proven as fake.
The Newest Weapon in Irregular Warfare. Artificial Intelligence
Irregular Warfare Center
Even if much-needed prosecutions against Hezbollah members are deemed too dangerous at present, donors must still pressure Beirut to extradite other individuals charged with crimes abroad, starting with banking official Riad Salameh.
Lebanon Is a Global Sanctuary for Criminals
Washington Institute
Artificial intelligence and systems need sufficient safeguards in place to avoid exacerbating biases in the nuclear security field.
New threats require innovative approaches to mitigation efforts and emerging technologies are a crucial part of nuclear security infrastructure. But embracing new tools comes with new considerations and risks. Responsible nuclear security practitioners must ask: what happens when the tools for protection begin working against those they are meant to protect? Such is the concern with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for nuclear security.
Dont Blame the Robots. Artificial Intelligence Bias & Implications for Nuclear Security
Stimson Center
The JOINT Effectiveness Checklist provides a comparatively simple framework for policy-makers and researchers to analyse the effectiveness of the EU’s response to conflicts and crises. It adds value to existing evaluation tools by a) assessing effectiveness relative to the level of difficulty of the policy environment, and b) adapting and further developing existing standard policy assessment criteria/indicators specifically to the requirements of the multi-actor/multi-layered/multi-sector nature of the EU foreign and security policy.
JOINT Effectiveness Checklist for EU Foreign and Security Policy in Conflict and Crisis Situations
Istituto Affari Internazionali
This report examines the prolonged political, humanitarian and developmental challenges faced by Yemen. It offers a range of recommended actions for the international community to address these issues effectively. Yemen is grappling with a severe humanitarian crisis triggered by ongoing conflict, economic instability and climate change-related disasters. The country is experiencing escalating temperatures, rising sea levels and shifting rainfall patterns, resulting in devastating floods, droughts, water scarcity and soil degradation.
Climate, Peace and Security Fact Sheet in Yemen
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
The urgency of establishing a zone free of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the Middle East has never been more apparent, yet its achievement remains distant. Very little progress has been made so far despite many resolutions in international forums and the broad international and regional support for its establishment. The long-standing divisions among regional states regarding the issue of a Middle East WMD-Free Zone (ME WMDFZ) have been combined with deep-seated rivalries and a lack of trust among states. These have led to a decline in attention to, interest in and research on collaborative initiatives to mitigate proliferation challenges in the Middle East and achieve progress on a ME WMDFZ. As progress remains elusive, the escalating risks associated with known and suspected WMD programmes only heighten the likelihood of further proliferation, conflict and instability within the region and beyond its borders.
Middle East WMD-Free Zone Project
United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research
Overall, the Arab League summit could be an opportunity for leaders to take steps to turn the League from a symbolic regional bloc to a more influential one. This could involve increasing collaboration and coordination between Arab states in more concrete terms, as well as strengthening and expanding the League's institutional capabilities.
What Critical Opportunities and Challenges Await the Arab League Summit?
Brussels International Center
The resurgence in late 2021 of the M23 rebel movement has plunged the volatile eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) into even more turmoil, displacing an additional 600 000 people in 18 months. Tensions between the DRC and Rwanda, which is supporting the M23, are at an all-time high. Regional efforts by Luanda to reconcile the two countries have so far failed. The East African Community has taken the bold step of sending in a regional military force, but its composition is problematic and it is already coming up against domestic opposition.
Reading of the Week: The M23 Crisis. An Opportunity to Bring Sustainable Peace to the Great Lakes Region?
The South African Institute of International Affair
The war in Yemen has reached an inflection point. Back-channel talks between two of the main belligerents – the Huthi rebels and Saudi Arabia, the chief external patron of the internationally recognised government – are proceeding amid a shaky informal truce. The front lines have stayed mostly quiet since April 2022, when the parties concluded a formal truce, despite that agreement’s expiry six months later. The pause in hostilities has helped the Huthi-Saudi parley along, and a deal appears to be on the horizon.
Yemens Troubled Presidential Leadership Council
International Crisis Group
The war in Yemen has reached an inflection point. Back-channel talks between two of the main belligerents – the Huthi rebels and Saudi Arabia, the chief external patron of the internationally recognised government – are proceeding amid a shaky informal truce. The front lines have stayed mostly quiet since April 2022, when the parties concluded a formal truce, despite that agreement’s expiry six months later. The pause in hostilities has helped the Huthi-Saudi parley along, and a deal appears to be on the horizon.
Yemens Troubled Presidential Leadership Council
International Crisis Group
In Central African countries, explosive substances, explosive precursor chemicals and initiators are controlled products and special authorization is needed to import, use, and transport or store them. However, some of these products are diverted, and used to manufacture improvised explosive devices (IEDs), or in activities such as illegal mining or blast fishing. Criminal actors are involved in the illicit flows of explosives. Some are the illegal final users of explosives, which constitute the last step of the illicit supply chain.
Reading of the Week: Illicit flows of explosives in Central Africa
Enhancing Africas Response to Transnational Organised Crime