The document discusses armed violence reduction (AVR) and how it relates to development. It argues that AVR is too broad a concept to be useful for development programming. Instead, development programs are better suited to address specific types of armed violence, such as those related to conflicts, disarmament and demobilization, community policing, or illicit trafficking. The document also notes that different types of armed violence, such as conflict, criminal, and interpersonal violence, often occur simultaneously in fragile contexts and peacebuilding situations, requiring tailored approaches to different phenomena. Overall, the document concludes that AVR sits at the interface of security and development policy and is best addressed through specific concepts targeting particular armed violence issues rather than as a

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Armed Violence Reduction –
Between Disarmament and
Development?
Dr. Fouzieh Melanie Alamir
Head of Competence Center „Security Sector“, GIZ

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AVR is a highly generic concept
• Armed violence hampers development in many dimensions
• By the same token, development instruments have important
contributions to make in helping reduce armed violence
• But that does not necessarily mean that armed violence reduction
(AVR) can serve as a handy concept to be operationalized by
development practitioners
• From a development perspective, the phenomenon of armed
violence is so multifaceted that it requires a highly differentiated
approach depending on the respective nature of armed violence

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Armed violence in the context of acute conflicts and war
• Armed violence as a result of conflicts and war in itself is a complex
phenomenon
• Violence among militant adversaries in acute situations of fighting
can hardly be addressed by development instruments at all
• Development approaches vis-à-vis armed violence against the
civilian population by regular or irregular combatants are rather
limited to ex-post and curative measures (e.g. work with refugees,
victims of sexual violence)
• A lever for development instruments is to work on conflicts via
mediation and confidence building measures, but requires a
minimum level of political willingness of combatants to sit and talk

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Armed violence in the context of peacebuilding processes
• From a development perspective, armed violence in this context is
primarily a governance issue and is tackled by a wide array of
measures to support institution building processes and
strengthening of good governance, such as judicial reforms, security
system reforms, and organizational development in all facets
• In addition, development actors can contribute to DDR, SALW
control, and illicit trafficking, e.g. by strengthening capacities of
responsible institutions, setting standards, ensuring diligent
processes
• Moreover, development cooperation can tackle cognitive and
normative dispositions in a society by peace education,
reconciliation, transitional justice in order to reduce the likelihood of
a resort to violence

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Armed violence in fragile contexts
• Armed violence in fragile contexts is an indicator of state fragility, be
it armed violence exercised by irregular groups that undermine the
state monopoly of power, or the large-scale domestic use of armed
violence by security forces
• As in peacebuilding contexts, armed violence in fragile countries is
primarily a governance issue and is primarily tackled by
development contributions to justice and security sector reforms as
well as measures against illicit trafficking
• Indirectly, all development instruments that support the
strengthening of government institutions, good governance, or
economic development can contribute to diminishing the likelihood
of outbreak of violence

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Criminal armed violence
• Criminal armed violence is often a result of state fragility. In this case
the development instruments mentioned above come to bear
• In non-conflict and not fragile environments, criminal armed violence
is considered to be a challenge for law enforcement agencies in
conjunction with education and social policy instruments; usually this
does nit fall into the realm of development policy

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Interpersonal armed violence
• Interpersonal armed violence may occur in all contexts
• While development instruments can address institutional (law
enforcement), policy (governance) and social (conflict resolution
mechanisms) factors, it fails to tackle psychological factors
• In non-conflict and not fragile environments, interpersonal armed
violence is considered to be a task for law enforcement agencies in
conjunction with education, social policy and psychological
instruments, where development policy is no assigned actors

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Simultaneity of different phenomena of armed violence
• A specific challenge, particularly of many peacebuilding processes
or fragile contexts, is that different phenomena of armed violence
(conflict driven, criminal, or interpersonal violence) occur at the
same time, are often hard to differentiate and sometimes
interdependent
• Against this background, development programs are unlikely to
address armed violence in general, but rather tackle specific
phenomena separately with tailormade concepts and approaches

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Conclusions
• AVR is too broad a concept to be of added value for operational
development programming
• It is rather specific conflicts or issues such as DDR, community
policing, SSR, gang and youth violence, illicit trafficking, or the like,
where development programs can make a contribution to addressing
these specific phenomena of armed violence
• Mainstreaming AVR as a general orientation into development
programming is therefore not recommended, as it is rather
understood as a sub-issue of conflict, peace and security which
have been largely mainstreamed

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Conclusions
• In practical terms, the collaboration between development and
security actors is less complicated than often assumed, if there is a
clear common objective and a political will to pursue a joint approach
• Speaking from a GIZ background of experience, the collaboration
with other departments and actors has not been a major problem at
the operational level
• It is rather the lack of strategic, cross-sectoral political objectives and
approaches at the politico-strategic level, both nationally and
internationally, which have hampered more comprehensive solutions
in addressing armed violence phenomena
• In order to answer the question in the title as to whether AVR is a
matter between disarmament and development, I’d rather say it is an
issue at the interface of security policy and development policy
which needs to be broken down to concepts and approaches
addressing specific phenomena of armed violence