17.PMWRA.Global.SALWDiversionData | PM PMWRA 17 035

Opportunity Information: Apply for PM PMWRA 17 035

The grant opportunity titled 17.PMWRA.Global.SALWDiversionData (Funding Opportunity Number: PM PMWRA 17 035) is a discretionary U.S. government funding call issued by the Department of State, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement (PM/WRA). The award instrument is a cooperative agreement, which generally means the government expects to be more actively involved than in a standard grant, such as through regular coordination, feedback on deliverables, or participation in shaping the work as it proceeds. The opportunity was created on May 23, 2017, and the original application closing date was July 7, 2017.

The core purpose of the project is open source data collection and reporting on illicit diversion of small arms and light weapons (SALW) and conventional ammunition from state-controlled stocks. In practical terms, the applicant is expected to identify and document cases where weapons or ammunition that should be under government control (for example, police armories, military depots, or other official stockpiles) are instead being stolen, sold, lost, or otherwise diverted into unauthorized hands. The emphasis is on building a steady, structured flow of information from open sources and turning that into consistent weekly reporting that summarizes documented cases.

Geographically, the requested monitoring and reporting spans multiple regions: Central and South America; North Africa, including the Maghreb; West Africa; the Sahel; East Africa; the Balkans; and specific countries including Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine (explicitly limited to areas outside contested zones), as well as the Philippines. A key constraint is that the work should concentrate on cases outside active conflict zones. That focus suggests the program is trying to capture patterns of leakage, corruption, theft, weak stockpile security, and diversion risks in places that are not already dominated by open warfare, where weapons flows are harder to distinguish from battlefield capture and where prevention and accountability measures may be more feasible to evaluate.

Methodologically, the solicitation highlights the use of both English-language and local-language sources. That implies applicants should have the capacity to monitor regional media, government or law-enforcement statements when available, court reporting, investigative journalism, credible NGO or research publications, and other publicly accessible materials in relevant local languages, not just English summaries. The local-language requirement also signals that the project is expected to surface cases that might never appear in international reporting, and to capture detail and context that can be lost in translation or omitted from secondary coverage.

Eligible applicants are broad and include public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, private institutions of higher education, nonprofits with or without 501(c)(3) status, individuals, and for-profit organizations (excluding small businesses as a category explicitly listed, though for-profits other than small businesses are named as eligible). The listing of individuals alongside institutions suggests PM/WRA was open to specialized subject-matter teams or independent researchers, provided they could meet the project’s operational demands and reporting cadence.

The stated award ceiling is $250,000. The number of expected awards is not specified in the provided listing, so it is not clear whether PM/WRA anticipated funding one project or multiple parallel efforts. The CFDA number associated with the opportunity is 19.800, which corresponds to Department of State assistance programs.

In short, this opportunity funds a structured, open-source monitoring and analysis effort aimed at systematically identifying and tracking real-world incidents of state-stockpile diversion of SALW and conventional ammunition across a defined set of regions, with a strong expectation of regular, weekly reporting and the linguistic capability to capture local reporting that would otherwise be missed.

• The Bureau of Political-Military Affairs - WRA in the other sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "17.PMWRA.Global.SALWDiversionData" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 19.800.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2017-05-23.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2017-07-07. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $250,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, Individuals, For-profit organizations other than small businesses.

Apply for PM PMWRA 17 035

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