The United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) mission is to promote sustainable development, in particular the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Where armed violence prevents development and the attainment of these goals, UNDP’s key concern is to contribute towards efforts to prevent violence and offer other avenues toward security, sustainable livelihoods, and development opportunities. WHO’s Department of Injuries and Violence Prevention, and UNDP’s Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery (BCPR) were created in direct response to the importance of these issues, and both feature armed violence prevention as top priorities for their respective organisations in meeting their wider mandates.

In 2005, the two Organisations initiated an Armed Violence Prevention Programme (AVPP) aimed at promoting effective responses to armed violence. The AVPP supports specific programmes in several Geneva Declaration focus countries. The overall objective of this programme is to promote effective responses to armed violence beyond security sector reform. This action-oriented approach is a model example of partnership among UN agencies. UNDP brings strong programming capacity in community development programmes to this effort, whereas WHO contributes with an understanding of the driving factors of violence, a series of violence-specific tools, and analytical expertise. The AVPP also brings together a number of other UN agencies, including UNICEF, HABITAT, and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).