SIPRI Update December 2022: New arms industry data, Stockholm Security Conference videos, South Sudan, Afghanistan, and more

On 5 December, SIPRI released its latest data on the sales of the world’s 100 largest arms and military companies, which reached $592 billion in 2021. This is a 1.9 per cent increase compared with 2020—marking the seventh consecutive year of rising global arms sales. While the sales increased, the rate of growth slowed down in comparison to previous years due to pandemic-related disruptions in global supply chains, which affected many parts of the industry.

Read more | Read the SIPRI Fact Sheet | Explore the graphics | Access the SIPRI Arms Industry Database

SIPRI hosted the seventh annual Stockholm Security Conference (SSC22) in a virtual format in November. Videos from the public sessions are now available on SIPRI’s YouTube channel. The conference featured 14 sessions on the theme ‘Battlefields of the Future—Trends of Conflict and Warfare in the 21st Century: Effects and Impact of the War in Ukraine’. So far, the conference has engaged more than 1000 unique participants from around the world.

Read more | Watch the videos | Read about SSC22

This month, SIPRI was pleased to launch a new film about the complexity of the food security crisis in South Sudan and the efforts needed to build stability and peace in a context of climate change impacts and intercommunal violence. The film is part of a wider knowledge partnership between SIPRI and the World Food Programme and builds on a series of video interviews with local people and humanitarian workers in South Sudan’s Jonglei State, exploring their perceptions of food security, violence and development challenges.

Watch the film | Read more

This month saw the release of the Environment of Peace research report, detailing the evidential and analytical foundations of the policy report Environment of Peace: Security in a New Era of Risk, released in May. SIPRI’s Environment of Peace initiative focuses on managing the risks posed by two interwoven crises: the darkening security horizon and the immense pressures being placed on the natural world and the systems that support life on earth. The report is the result of two years’ work by more than 30 researchers, led and guided by some of the leading voices in the fields of environment and security.

Read more | Read the Report | Learn about Environment of Peace | Read the Policy Report

On 29 November, Hafsa Maalim, SIPRI Associate Senior Researcher, participated in a United Nations Security Council Arria-formula meeting organized by the Permanent Missions of Kenya and Norway to the UN. The meeting focused on broadening the Security Council's awareness of how climate, security and peacebuilding interact. Over the last two years, SIPRI and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs have supported the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs during Norway’s period as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, by generating timely fact sheets on the relationship between climate change, peace and conflict in a number of countries.

Read more | Watch the recording | Read the fact sheets

On 29 November, the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Security and Defence held a public hearing entitled ‘The War in Ukraine: Implications for Arms Export Policies at the EU Level’. SIPRI experts Giovanna Maletta and Dr Lucie Béraud-Sudreau briefed the subcommittee on the significance and impact that the European Peace Facility is having on the European Union (EU) export control framework by supplying military equipment to Ukraine and gave an overview of the policy debates around arms transfers to Ukraine in three of the EU’s largest arms exporters.

Read more | Watch the recording

SIPRI actively participated in the 11th annual EU Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Conference, held on 14–15 November 2022. This included contributing in sessions on cyber-security, missile technology proliferation and the next generation in non-proliferation and disarmament. SIPRI experts also participated in side events relating to the conference, looking at the challenges of emerging technologies. The conference, which is funded by the EU, was organized by the Institute of International Affairs on behalf of the EU Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Consortium (EUNPDC).

Read more | Read about EUNPDC

Twenty years ago, the six countries bordering Afghanistan signed a declaration expressing their shared commitment to help rebuild the country and a desire for ‘peace and stability in the region’ after the fall of the then Taliban government. While regional cooperation has been limited in the past two decades, this SIPRI Topical Backgrounder presents several indications that a more regionally grounded, cohesive perspective and approach is emerging—small seeds from which a sustainable response to Afghanistan’s peace, security and development challenges might grow.

Read the SIPRI Topical Backgrounder

The global biodiversity agenda received an unexpected boost at November’s UN climate summit in Egypt. Protecting nature and addressing the climate crisis should go hand-in-hand with protecting human rights and Indigenous Peoples’ rights. One essential step is ensuring that provisions on protecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) remain prominent in the Global Biodiversity Framework. This SIPRI WritePeace blog looks at how keeping the role and rights of IPLCs prominent in the new Global Biodiversity Framework could help to ensure that large-scale nature conservation is just, peaceful and effective.

Read the SIPRI WritePeace blog

This SIPRI Topical Backgrounder provides an updated picture of Arms Trade Treaty-relevant assistance activities involving countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It builds on research conducted in 2018 and a preliminary analysis of arms transfer and small arms and light weapons control-related challenges and needs in MENA that was published in November 2022. Further, it assesses to what extent assistance delivered in the region has been in line with the needs and requests of MENA countries and provides recommendations on the priorities that should be the focus of future assistance efforts.

Read the SIPRI Topical Backgrounder

On 2 December, SIPRI and the Government of the United Kingdom co-hosted a side event in Geneva at the Ninth Review Conference of the Biological Weapons Convention entitled ‘Biorisk Awareness Across Stakeholder Communities’. The side event broadly examined the degree to which cross-sectoral engagement on biosecurity exists and explored the best ways to incentivize different stakeholder groups to create a more open and collaborative biosecurity community.

Read more