Conference targets armed violence

Around 1,500 people are killed in armed violence each day worldwide, an international conference in Geneva heard on Monday.

“Three thousand will be killed during the two days of this conference,” Martin Dahinden, head of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, told the meeting.

More than 400 representatives from 80 countries are taking part in the Review Conference of the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development.

The declaration is a diplomatic initiative aimed at addressing the interrelations between armed violence and development.

It was first adopted by 42 states in 2006 at a summit in Geneva, at the initiative of the Swiss government and the United Nations Development Programme.

Now endorsed by more than 100 states, the signatories recognise that armed violence constitutes a major obstacle to the achievement of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. 

According to Geneva’s Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, one quarter of the victims are concentrated in 14 countries, and half of them in Latin American states.