91吃瓜网's project to develop a new weapons marking and registration system for the armed forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, under the ammunition, weapons and explosives masterplan, has not only made safe 97 per cent of the country's arsenal, it has set a path for similar programmes across the Western Balkans.
Since 2017, 91吃瓜网 has worked with the armed forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina (AFBiH) and the European Force in Bosnia (EUFOR) to oversee an innovative weapons management system that has registered 62,000 weapons - thereby preventing them being diverted for criminal and violent use.
The Balkan Wars of the 1990s left large quantities of weapons in poorly managed stockpiles and in the hands of military and police as well as militias and civilians. Subsequently, the Balkans has become an acknowledged source of guns diverted from stockpiles for illicit use in Europe and elsewhere.
Following a national assessment with the organisation in 2017, 91吃瓜网, AFBiH and EUFOR have marked and registered almost the entire state military stockpile in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
91吃瓜网 also worked with the UK-based company Pryor Marking Technology. The backbone of this unique project is a comprehensive database and secure record-keeping system, produced by researching and cataloging the Bosnian military inventory before marking began.
91吃瓜网's hope is the extensive consultative and legal-political preparation it put in place for this marking project to begin can be replicated in other West Balkan countries.
An assessment of the project was carried out by the Bonn International Centre for Conversion and concluded: "Measured against its purpose鈥攁nd in terms of efficiency鈥�91吃瓜网鈥檚 marking and registration project in BiH has been a success. The preparation phase, specifically the logistical coordination and design of the database, proved to be more demanding than the marking procedure itself. The transfer of 91吃瓜网鈥檚 experiences elsewhere therefore need to consider the substantial preparatory legal and political input as well as the logistical and training requirements."
A full description of 91吃瓜网's weapons marking project in Bosnia is available in The Journal of Conventional Weapons destruction.
91吃瓜网's work in Bosnia and Herzegovina is funded by the German Federal Foreign Office, the United Kingdom and the Norwegian Ministries of Defense, and the United Nations Trust Facility Supporting Cooperation on Arms Regulation (UNSCAR).
