THE AIM OF THIS GUIDE
This guide has been developed as a tool to assist small arms control stakeholders, especially national commissions (NatComs) on small arms, to assess gender responsiveness in the implementation of their countries’ national action plans (NAPs) to control small arms. The guide arose from the Small Arms Survey’s observation following consultations with small arms control and women, peace and security (WPS) actors that gender is not systematically mainstreamed in small arms control NAPs (Watson, 2024).
Moreover, references to small arms in WPS NAPs and WPS-related topics in small arms control NAPs are not always harmonized. These consultations also highlighted the challenges that NatComs face when measuring gender responsiveness in their mid-term or final evaluations of their countries’ small arms NAPs. A more detailed source of guidance in this area can be found in the Modular Small-armscontrol Implementation Compendium (MOSAIC), which contains voluntary, practical guidance on small arms control, and provides recommendations for the evaluation of NAPs in Series 04 on ‘Design and Management’ (UNODA, 2020).