Muggah, Robert

Muggah, Robert

Robert Muggah

1 September 2003Feature

With the first UN Biennial Meeting of States to discuss the UN's programme of action on small arms and light weapons having taken place in New York between 7 and 11 July 2003,this special feature by Robert Muggah considers some of the relationships between small arms misuse and development - and what the development community is, or isn't, doing about it.

Cheap, portable and readily available: every year more than half a million people are killed through the misuse of small arms such as handguns, assault rifles and grenades. Millions more are crippled. With poverty providing an ideal breeding ground for small arms proliferation, African countries are currently the worst hit by a global epidemic of armed violence which threatens the safety and well-being of people in developed and developing countries alike.

The human costs of small…