UNLIREC and the Government of Paraguay held an executive workshop to increase awareness of the Arms Trade Treaty

The United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNLIREC), continues to support State efforts to achieve effective implementa-tion of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). In that context, UNLIREC and Paraguay’s Ministry of For-eign Affairs organized an Executive Workshop. The two-day activity (28-29 November) held at the Diplomatic and Consular Academy, aimed at increasing technical knowledge on the obligations of the Arms Trade Treaty. The Workshop targeted officials from sectors in charge or linked to con-trolling conventional arms transfers and ATT implementation.

In addition, UNLIREC presented the regional and international context of conventional arms trans-fers, Treaty obligations regarding the establishment of a national control system, a national control list and the available mechanisms to present initial and annual reports before the ATT Secretariat.

Paraguay’s current situation was analyzed alongside the ATT obligations at the executive work-shop. The information gathered from this encounter served as the basis for future discussions and as a source of inputs to identify the next steps implementing the Treaty.

The discussions held during the Workshop will continue in February (2019), at a second Executive Workshop on good practices, in the areas of arms control and prevention of the diversion of weap-ons, ammunition, parts and components, aimed to officials with responsibilities related to the pre-vention of diversions.

Participants included the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Directorate of War Material, National Police, Ministry of Interior, Public Ministry, National Customs Directorate, National Anti-Drug Secretariat, National Defense Commission of the National Congress, the Money Laundering Prevention Secre-tariat and the National Secretariat for the Administration of Seized and Confiscated Assets.

All project-related activities were funded by the ATT Voluntary Trust Fund (VTF), of which Para-guay is a beneficiary and in which UNLIREC, at the request of the Paraguayan authorities, is an implementing partner.