Tracking trafficked weapons using CAR’s StoryMap
Conflict Armament Research has been awarded the 2021 Map Creator Customer Award by Esri UK for its creation of a StoryMap approach to visually communicate its findings and inform UN and EU policymakers.
CAR investigates illicit weapons supplies into conflict zones.
CAR published its first StoryMap using Esri’s ArcGIS Online in February 2020 to report on Nigeria’s herder-farmer conflict, which has mainly involved the nation’s Christian and Muslim Fulani rural populations.
The map was derived from evidence collected through its first field study on the trafficking of weapons and ammunition to armed groups in Northern Nigeria.
CAR extracted this data from spreadsheets and used it to create a story, explored through three case studies, of how these groups were being armed.
Using Esri’s terrain map CAR can show the movements of weapons from Turkey, the Ivory Coast and Libya.
CAR uses ArcGIS capabilities for its database on diverted weapons and ammunition into conflict zones.
CAR has also created iTrace to aid national arms export control agencies in identifying diversion risks prior to export.
iTrace automatically quantifies diversion risks and profiles the sources of diversion nationally, regionally, and globally.
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