Aiming for Prevention

IPPNW's International Campaign to Prevent Small Arms Violence

As a global organisation committed to protecting human health from the effects of militarism and war, IPPNW launched its "Aiming for Prevention" campaign at an International conference in Helsinki, Finland in 2001. The goal of the campaign is to reduce and prevent injuries and death from small arms violence, and its effects on health, development and peace in the developing world. In Africa, Latin America, and South Asia, IPPNW is mobilising the unique expertise and authority of physicians and public health professionals to document the devastating human impact of small arms, educate key stakeholders, and advocate policy reform.

IPPNW's 'public health approach' is a critical, and heretofore missing, complement to traditional arms control activities. It is designed to unravel the causes of firearm violence, thus enabling the formation of appropriate interventions at the weakest links in the chain. Equally important, it offers the ability to quantify the human costs of small arms injuries and death to help inform public policy.

The Problem

Over 600 million small arms circulate in global markets and demand is increasing. Their wide availability and rampant use exacerbate conflict and violence that shatter years of hard-earned progress in development, health, and humanitarian services. Small arms and light weapons kill an estimated 200,000 - 300,000 people per year.

Campaign Objectives

Aiming for Prevention seeks to reduce deaths and injuries from small arms on a global scale. Toward this end, IPPNW's campaign involves research, education and advocacy components, and sets out to:

• Draw world attention to the health and humanitarian consequences of small arms;
• Mobilize physicians and health professionals to work for preventive programs and policies;
• Improve understanding of the problem and effective solutions through credible public health research;
• Provide evidence-based policy suggestions for limiting the impact of small arms;
• Create a sustained health capacity at multiple levels to detect, prevent, and monitor small arms injury.

Educate and Mobilize

International conferences, local meetings and regional workshops provide an opportunity to engage with colleagues from medicine, forensics, public health, NGOs, law enforcement, the military, and government about the health consequences of small arms and possible approaches for their reduction.

Research

Better surveillance of the full range of health impacts from small arms violence is required-including the numbers of dead and wounded from small arms and also aspects such as internal displacement, increased terror among the public, effects on families, and the national economic costs associated with the range of effects. Aiming for Prevention supports affiliates research initiatives that are well designed and can provide useful information to inform public health interventions and policy changes.

Advocate

MESARES leaders meeting with the President of El Salvador to discuss firearm legislation

Campaign leaders interact with policy makers to advocate for policies to prevent firearm violence and support their implementation at the local, national, and international level. Aiming for Prevention works with health agencies at the local and regional level to promote improved injury surveillance methods, and with law enforcement and military agencies to encourage public health access to relevant records. In collaboration with other NGOs "Aiming for Prevention" advocates for policy measures to minimize the trafficking and misuse of small arms.

For more information on IPPNW's Aiming for Prevention campaign, contact coordinator Maria Valenti in the IPPNW Central Office in Cambridge, Massachusetts.