On 7 December 2022, UNODC, through its Global Firearms Programme (GFP) organized a meeting with representatives from the Western Balkans with the objective to review and validate the baseline assessment on firearms data in the criminal justice system. The assessment’s aim is to contribute to improving data collection and providing information for the annual UNODC Illicit Arms Flow Questionnaire (IAFQ).
UNODC GFP presented a summary of the submissions by the 5 countries in the last 5 years: Albania has provided inputs on four occasions, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia on two occasions, whereas Bosnia and Herzegovina has not provided data yet. The inputs provided varied also in terms of the data shared with UNODC: only on one occasion the information shared included both metadata and firearms data information.
The presentation of the assessment identified the institutions in each WB jurisdiction responsible for the collection and processing of firearms-related data in the criminal justice system (police, customs, prosecutor’s office, and courts); analysis of the criminal justice data collection processes and the use of data by the institutions; analysis of the data collection procedures and recommendations on how these procedures can be improved in each jurisdiction.
The participants reflected on the presented information about their capability to provide responses to the 30 questions of the IAFQ and provided additional feedback and suggestions for the improvement of the report. In their interventions, they focused on three criteria for assessing the availability of relevant data. The first criterion established the questions where it is possible to provide the data (answer to the IAFQ question) without any obstacle, as the data is recorded, easily available, and could be provided within a rather short period. The second criterion included the cases where it would be possible to provide the data (answer to the question), however, it would require some additional time and effort since the data is recorded, yet not easily available. Providing the data would require tracing the illicit firearms trafficking cases back in the files, going through various forms and records that are usually in hard copy format, and creating tables anew. The third criterion referred to the questions where it is not possible to provide the data (answer to the question), as the data is not recorded, or the legal definition and a corresponding data recording procedure do not allow for such disaggregation or because of some other reason.
Based on the provided information, it can be concluded that criteria one and two apply to Albania, whereas the other jurisdictions can provide information to over 55% of the questions. The discussions contributed also to the identification of challenges related to receiving information from UNODC and answering the questions. The participants provided feedback on the need to increase the awareness about the legal basis, which defines their obligation to provide answers to the IAFQ. They identified also the need to develop detailed instructions for answering each question, the need for training on the structure and content of the IAFQ to avoid different interpretations of the questions in the IAFQ, the need for training on the analytical questions and interpretation of data on illicit trafficking in firearms, and the need for technical assistance for improving cooperation between different agencies/institutions across national data collection systems.
The delegations validated the baseline assessment and requested UNODC to reflect their comments, which they will provide by the end of 2022, in the final version of the document. This activity is implemented with financial support provided by Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden, France, the Netherlands, and Norway through the Western Balkans SALW Control Roadmap Trust Fund and supported by the European Union.
