Working Paper No. 15 

Policing the Periphery: Opportunities and Challenges for Kenya Police Reserve describes the history and context of the volunteer auxiliary police force that offers protection in Kenya's more remote areas. While police reservists often provide valuable services in insecure regions where regular policing is scarce, in many cases a lack of  adequate training, accountability, and resources are cause for concern.

By Robert Muggah, co-published with Oxfam.

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A recent survey on perceptions of security in Kenya found that the highest area of concern among household respondents was safety during electioneering periods. Specifically, 48.4 per cent felt most unsafe during political campaigns: an understandable anxiety, given Kenya’s recent political history and its recurrent electoral violence.

Armed groups, whatever their objectives, tend to rely on similar mechanisms to control their fighters. These include a recruitment process that aims to provide the group with the appropriate quantity and quality of personnel; a socialization process for new recruits (such as through oaths and initiation rituals); and the elaboration of internal regulations—such as codes of conduct— and their dissemination among the rank and file.

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Karamoja, in the north-east of Uganda and one of the country’s least developed regions, has been plagued by decades-long inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic violence. The availability and use of small arms in the region has exacerbated the violence, and a climate of insecurity has hindered development. Various peace and security initiatives in the region aim to reduce the violence and improve security.

This Security Assessment in North Africa (SANA) project paper on armed groups in Libya shows that the revolutionary brigades formed to topple Gaddafi are still a cohesive military force. The study highlights the emergence of the National Shield, which it calls an ‘army-in-waiting’, and suggests there is a power struggle over the rebuilding of the Libyan National Army as revolutionary commanders still distrust much of the leadership of the Libyan National Army and the Ministry of Defence who ran the war against them.

Small arms availability and misuse have been a problem in Kenya for many years, but the post-2007 election violence increased the urgency of small arms reduction efforts. While significant progress has been made, law enforcement efforts to control the proliferation of small arms still face considerable challenges, according to a new study.

Unlike some of its Central Asian neighbours, Kazakhstan has been spared civil war and ethnic strife, earning it the reputation of being a pillar of stability in an otherwise volatile region. The country also has a relatively comprehensive set of measures in place to regulate civilian acquisition and possession of small arms, and is an active participant in international small arms processes. Yet several incidents of armed violence with extremist and terrorist undertones that took place in 2011 suggest the country is not immune to the misuse of firearms.

Armed groups—such as insurgent organizations—rely on internal regulations to exercise control over fighters; these rules also affect the groups’ respect for humanitarian law and human rights, and on levels of armed violence. Certain types of regulations can provide detailed guidance on the use of arms, their storage, and their management.