Peace from a gender perspective, China's defence budget, security in the Caucasus, and more

SIPRI at 50—A Year of Reflection on Peace and Security: Looking at peace from a gender perspective and why it matters

SIPRI released the third film, 'Looking at peace from a gender perspective and why it matters', in its short-film series 2016—A Year of Reflection. The film features SIPRI Research Assistant Emma Bjertén-Günther, Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström and SIPRI Chairman Sven-Olof Petersson discussing the role of gender in peace processes.

Watch the third film or see the whole series thus far on SIPRI's YouTube channel.

This film series is produced in cooperation with Different Films Limited.

Economics trumps geopolitics as China announces lowest defence budget increase in years
 

On 5 March, the opening day of the annual National People’s Congress, China announced a 7.6 per cent increase in its National Defense budget for 2016—or a total of 954 billion yuan ($146 billion). After accounting for inflation, the increase amounts to about 6 per cent compared with 2015 and is the lowest since 2010.

Read the expert comment by Sam Perlo-Freeman.

African stakeholders call for more comprehensive, robust and long-term peace operations

As part of its New Geopolitics of Peace Operations in Africa Initiative, SIPRI and its project partner, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) organized a series of dialogue meetings with diplomats, military representatives and academics in five subregions of Africa. The meetings focused on peace operations in Africa and are summarized in five SIPRI workshop reports.

The reports can be downloaded from the SIPRI website. Please contect Xenia Avezov for more information.

Security in the Caucasus—see what’s new on SIPRI’s blog WritePeace

Middle East Conflict Risks Overspill into the Caucasus

Read this and all earlier WritePeace blog contributions.

New SIPRI publication on peacebuilding in Mali

SIPRI issued the new Insight on Peace and Security: Opportunity and challenges for civil society contributions to peacebuilding in Mali by Gaudence Nyirabikali.

Peace and security in Mali remained fragile at the end of 2015, despite the official endorsement in May and June 2015 of a peace agreement by all the parties to the political conflict. Civil society has the potential to promote an inclusive dialogue among all stakeholders and to contribute to other peacebuilding activities.

This SIPRI Insight on Peace and Security discusses some of the opportunities and challenges for civil society contributions to the ongoing peace process, and the policy implications for effective civil society contributions to the peacebuilding agenda in Mali.

Download the SIPRI Insight on Peace and Security.

SIPRI Yearbook 2015

The 46th edition of the SIPRI Yearbook is a compendium of data and analysis in the areas of security and conflicts; military spending and armaments; and non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament. It covers developments during 2014, including:

• aspects of the ongoing conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Ukraine;
• regional military-security trends in East Asia;
• military spending in the USA;
• the continued negotiations regarding Iran's nuclear programme; and
• the entry into force of the Arms Trade Treaty.

Download a summary of the SIPRI Yearbook 2015.
Browse the contents page.