In September 2015, the United Nations member states, including South Africa, adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, replacing the Millennium Development Goals, with a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets.
A significant shift in the development of these new goals was the recognition that a broader range of factors such as violence and insecurity contribute to ongoing underdevelopment, and that unless these are addressed in a comprehensive manner, the main aims of the 2030 Agenda, namely, to reduce poverty and promote health and education, will not be achieved.
Goal 16 which focuses on promoting peaceful and inclusive societies makes a clear connection between development, peace, security and arms control, with Target 16.4 of Goal 16 making the link explicit: reducing ‘illicit arms flows’ is an important contributor to building peaceful societies.
Briefing 6 explores Target 16.4 of Goal 16 in more detail, with a particular focus on what steps South Africa needs to take to ‘significantly reduce illicit… arms flows by 2030’, which in effect means mopping up the existing pool of illegal guns and reducing the movement of guns from the legal to the illegal market.
