Bridging security and development

People-centred approaches needed

Strategies for securing peace that have worked in Afghanistan are unlikely to work in Iraq or Somalia. Yet, interventions by international organisations and countries in crisis areas continue to follow the same formula: first condemnation, then sanctions, then military action.

Military interventions in Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq have failed to bring peace or prevent crises from spiralling out of control. Clearly, the international community needs a new framework for engagement in fragile situations.

To address this problem, the Human Security framework has been developed by academics and policymakers. At its core, human security prioritises an individual's fears and needs over that of a country or government.

A good description of human security can be found in the 1994 UNDP Human Development Report: 'safety from such chronic threats as hunger, disease, and repression; and protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the patterns of daily lives, whether in homes, jobs or communities'. This inter-connected multi-dimensional approach aims to build contextual and focussed policy responses to security threats.

Researchers from the Institute of Development Studies in the UK have analysed thirteen UNDP National Human Development Reports on human security. Findings include:

• The causes of insecurity in the surveyed countries (including Latvia, Mozambique, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Sierra Leone) are a combination of social, political, and economic factors, and cannot be solved by addressing any in isolation.
• In countries such as Latvia, East Timor, Mozambique, and Bangladesh, shortcomings in the delivery of basic social services such as healthcare, education, jobs and social security networks tend to rank as high as threats to individual and national security.
• Poor people tend to lack awareness of laws and their rights, making structures of public accountability useless in countries such as Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
• Holistic or integrated approaches such as the sustainable economic, community, political and livelihood development policies adopted in Sierra Leone have the best chance of success.
• Analysis of the needs of vulnerable groups, such as children, ethnic minorities, women and older people in Moldova have helped shape a number of new social and economic policies.

The research also found that the biggest challenge to implementing a human security approach in fragile conditions is the inability of donor agencies and national governments to adopt holistic strategies. The problem is aggravated by some who dismiss the human security approach as too vague and too closely linked to security rather than development.

The surveys also show that people's perceptions of insecurity affect their lives beyond most other considerations. Policies that bridge security and development, therefore, will best address the challenges faced in fragile states.

Recommendations for fragile states include:

• policy initiatives based on human security in fragile states need to be formulated on a case-by-case basis
• policymakers in donor institutions and countries must focus on people-centred security and development policies
• new policies must be based on evidence gathered from comprehensive surveys and interviews of people living in insecure environments
• the new UN Peace Building Commission should base all its activities in fragile states on the principles of human security.

Deepayan Basu Ray
Oxford Policy Management,
6 St. Aldates Courtyard, 38 St. Aldates,
Oxford OX1 1BN, UK
T +44 (0)1865 207347
deepayan.basuray@opml.co.uk

Richard Jolly
Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Falmer BN1 9RE, UK
T +44 (0)1273 606261
r.jolly@ids.ac.uk

See also

The Human Security Framework and National Human Development Reports: A Review of Experiences and Current Debate, HDRO Occasional Paper 5, Human Development Report Office, UNDP, by Richard Jolly and Deepayan Basu Ray, 2006 (PDF) Link

Human Development Report 1994, United Nations Development Programme, Oxford University Press:
New York, 1994
http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/1994/en

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