China, UN, AU Partner for Small Arms Control Training in Africa's Great Lakes Region

As China’s relationship with African countries deepens, the country’s influence is spreading into more areas. In this series Jevans Nyabiage looks at an initiative to help control weapons and reduce conflict in a region where Beijing has vast economic interests.

China is marketing its strict policing and arms control expertise as a blueprint to stabilise Africa’s conflict-torn Great Lakes region, leveraging its reputation as one of the world’s safest countries.

Earlier this month, China and the United Nations hosted security officials from the region, including representatives from Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), and Rwanda, at the People’s Public Security University in Beijing for a training programme on the control of small arms and light weapons (SALW).

The training-of-trainers initiative seeks to strengthen the capacity of these countries to manage weapons, reduce illicit circulation and support the African Union’s “Silencing the Guns in Africa” project, a flagship initiative aimed at achieving a conflict-free continent.

Like other parts of Africa such as the Sahel, the Great Lakes region has long been destabilised by the illicit proliferation of small arms fuelling conflict and hampering local security.

This instability poses significant risks to China’s vast economic interests, particularly its copper and cobalt mining operations in the DR Congo.