Abstract

While security used to be a matter of balance between different blocs of States, in the new era of international relations the many internal conflicts, causing just as many civil victims, gave way to the concept of “human security“. Later, seven types of security were defined: economic, food, environmental, personal, community and political.

At the same time during the 90s, the impossibility of development through rapid economic growth has lead to a new concept of development: that of “human development“. Development and security soon became unseparable concepts. And faced with the difficulties in stopping a conflict once it had started, a new concept was born: “conflict prevention“.

However, today the question remains: does security come before development or is it the other way round? In the last few years it became more and more obvious that both objectives are interrelated. In particuliar, the fight against small arms proliferation is one of the actions to be undertaken to achieve development, as is highlighted by UNDP (United Nations Development Programme).