For UNODA to operate effectively at regional and national levels, RDB works in partnership and cooperation with regional and subregional organizations, other UN entities, and civil society organizations.

RDB and the Regional Centres work in close partnership with regional and subregional organizations on policy issues as well as on implementing joint programmes. Policy issues include the assistance in the drafting of subregional legally-binding instruments or the development of continental strategies for arms control. Joint programmes include the carrying out of legal assessments and of training of government officials.

The Regional Centres engage in cooperation regional and subregional organisations on disarmament-related issues, including with regional organisations such as the African Union (AU) and the Organization of American States (OAS), and subregional organisations such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Andean Community, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), the Economic Community of West African States, the Pacific Islands Forum, the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation, the Regional Centre on Small Arms and Light Weapons, the Southern African Development Community, and others.

The Regional Centres in African and Latin America and the Caribbean have developed specific cooperative partnerships and exclusive programmes with the AU and the OAS. In particularly, OAS has recognised UNLIREC as its technical implementing partners for issues related to small arms and light weapons control. In Africa, the AU has agreed with UNREC to work on small arms control as well as on the implementation of the African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone .

UNODA has signed Memoranda of Understanding identifying areas of cooperation and joint activities with a number of regional and subregional organisations and bodies and civil-society organisations, including with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Economic Community of Central African States, the Regional Centre on Small Arms (RECSA) and the Organization of American States, and the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA).