The Government of the Republic of North Macedonia is committed to preventing, controlling and eradicating the proliferation of SALW in accordance with international initiatives and standards and as underlined in the National SALW Strategy. The Ministry of Internal Affairs, as one of the main implementers of the Strategy, identified several gaps hampering implementation of the Strategy and thus delivered an assistance request to OSCE FSC in 2019, seeking support in responding to these challenges. In response to that request, the OSCE Mission to Skopje developed a dedicated Extra Budgetary Project no. 2600975. 

The newly developed Extra Budgetary Project no. 2600975 is designed to target three priority areas as identified by the MoIA and will work to:

1. improve co-ordination and inter-agency co-operation mechanism of the National SALW Commission,
2. build detection capacity of the K9 assets and
3. increase the capacities of national authorities in raising public awareness on the dangers of misuse and proliferation of SALW.

The support will be provided through organising workshops, working group meetings, conferences and training courses; developing regulatory materials, guidance, training curricula; and upgrading the currently existing infrastructure. 

In the period 2017 to 2021, the Mission provided support to the Ministry of Internal Affairs to decrease the transnational threats by enhancing the physical capacities of its armouries and preventing proliferation by ensuring that SALW are held in accordance with security needs and international standards. The Mission also assisted and continues to support the Ministry in strengthening its professional capacities for establishing internal regulations and measures for SALW storage and by that, decreasing the security risk at the national, regional and international levels. 

For more information about this project please see project no. 2600896 titled "Reduction of the risk for proliferation of weapons and ammunition in the Republic of North Macedonia".