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| SECURITY
The effective provision of security and justice is one of the main requirements for sustainable peace and economic development. They are both basic human rights and essential services. The delivery of these services involves a broad and interconnected range of public and private structures, going well beyond the military and police. Yet, the activities of poorly trained, poorly governed and often corrupt security and justice services are a significant source of insecurity for ordinary people.
International approaches to enhancing security continue to have a number of weaknesses. Activities are not always designed and implemented on the basis of shared best practice or coordinated with ongoing or planned development projects. In particular internationally supported programmes do not always respond to the needs of the communities concerned, undermining ownership and effectiveness.
The IfP partners will assess the extent to which community needs are reflected and addressed by donor programming. The focus will be on improving the design and implementation of the EU and member states’ security-enhancing programmes in order to ensure they are responsive to the needs and concerns of local communities and maximise the potential for sustainable peace and long term development. The focal countries of this cluster include Albania, Burundi, DRC, Haiti, Nepal and Ukraine.
The IfP partners collaborating in this work are The Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’, Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), La Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior (FRIDE), International Alert, International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) and Saferworld.
Cluster coordinator: Saferworld (Sebastien Babaud)
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LATEST SECURITY PUBLICATIONS
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Security Sector Reform and Donor Assistance in Serbia 2000-2010
Author(s): Dr Amadeo Watkins
2010-01-29
Following the turbulent decade of war and destruction, Serbia has been gradually reforming its security infrastructure towards a more accountable and transparent system fully under control of democratic forces and in line with its internal requirements. This effort has been heavily influenced by the international actors who are keen to see Serbia stable and progressing towards Europe. This case study provides a critical assessment of the past ten years of assistance provided to this important sector. The paper concludes that much more needs to be done in donor cooperation and coordination in line with the Paris Declaration 2005, both on the donor end but more importantly at the recipient side. A recognition that SSR is not only about increasing operational capacity but also about enhanced service delivery, governance and accountability will go a long way to improving SSR in the case of Serbia. |
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Security Sector Reform in Timor-Leste
Author(s): ICTJ
2009-06-26
Timor-Leste is a young country that has undergone a turbulent transition following 24 years of violent Indonesian occupation. It suffered from a brief but violent breakdown of security in 2006. Relative order was restored with the help of an international military contingent. Currently, a wide array of international donors is working with Timor-Leste to help support reform in the security sector. While many of these programs have had a positive impact, donor-driven security reform agendas have been under-coordinated. In the best of cases this has resulted in less than optimal results and in the worst of cases it has lead to animosity, tension, and violence. Fortunately, this paradigm is beginning to change, as the Timorese government takes steps to play a greater role in coordinating and managing its own security sector reform agenda. However, for this shift toward a more locally controlled SSR to be successful, the government must address the culture of impunity and strengthen the rule of law. |
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Transitional Justice and Security System Reform
Author(s): Laura Davis
2009-06-24
Reforming the security system in postconflict environments to ensure security agents become protectors of the population is vital for peacebuilding and state-building. Justice-sensitive SSR aims to prevent recurrence and repetition of human rights violations by reforming abusive institutions, increasing their integrity, accountability and legitimacy, and transforming the institution’s role in society, including by empowering the citizens. This paper draws on research into SSR and transitional justice in Afghanistan, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Timor-Leste, and suggests ways in which the EU could improve the substance of its SSR programming and implementation by drawing on lessons from these cases. |
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