IN AFRICA and elsewhere, the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons is opaque, amorphous and dynamic. It is also a global enterprise with illicit weapons across Africa coming from virtually every major arms producing country in the world. Small Arms Survey puts the dollar value of the illicit small arms trade at US$1 billion, or 10-20% of the global trade. The clandestine nature of this trade makes it impossible to confirm these estimates, but what is obvious is that in Africa the illicit trade in small arms is counter-developmental on many levels. What follows is a snapshot of the sources, the trade, the costs and what must be done.