Reclaiming security to meet poor people’s needs

Tom Donnelly unpacks some of the complexity around the security and development debate.

South-Sudan: photo by Pete Mueller, saferworld photo

Poor people want to feel safe, just like anyone else. Whether in the midst of endemic violence, such as in Afghanistan or Somalia, or in more stable countries where the police and judicial services may still be inadequate, unfair, or abusive, security and access to justice are development goals in their own right.

Although we often recognise this through our experience on the ground, as a sector we have not yet fully engaged with aid’s potential to help address poor people’s security and justice needs. In this respect, the recent focus on conflict and security within the development agenda is to be welcomed – though many worry that this is motivated less by a concern for ordinary people and more by the perceived security interests of donors.

We would be right to reject any such ‘securitisation’ but, whilst doing so, must not lose sight of aid’s potential to promote genuine security and justice for poor people themselves.

It is a vision of a development-led process itself that is at risk of being securitised.

What does ‘security’ mean?

Security is a small word with many meanings. While there is sometimes an assumption that ‘security’ refers primarily to states or regimes, there are alternative approaches, such as ‘human security’ which takes the security of individuals and communities as its starting point. This has widened the idea of security beyond physical safety and ‘freedom from fear’ to also encompass other important aspects needed to ‘secure’ human wellbeing – such as political empowerment or ‘freedom from want’ (having access to health and education, for instance).

However, ‘state’ and ‘human’ security are not mutually exclusive. The human security of vulnerable individuals and communities relies, at least in part, on a functioning and responsive state which itself needs security. In this way, the relationship between donors, national governments and individual communities are all important. We need an inclusive approach to security that recognises the needs of both states and communities and, for us in the development community, the real challenge is in ensuring that the needs of poor people are met throughout.

Meeting poor people’s security and justice needs

Communities must be given the opportunity to define their own vision of security and access to justice. In some places this may mean ending violent attacks and rape but in others it could mean livestock being safe from theft, the monsoon not washing away crops, or not being unfairly exploited in commercial transactions.

The international community can do much to help:

supporting communities to identify their security and justice concerns and develop appropriate solutions
aiding the development of not just capable but accountable and responsive security and justice services
promoting a dialogue between national civil society and governments in developing countries about how to meet the security needs of both people and the state

But such a ‘developmental approach’ to security and justice is far from assured and this subject is a live debate within as well as between donor governments.

The idea of reforming unaccountable security services has its roots in the development agenda, but it is a vision of a development-led process itself that is at risk of being ‘securitised’. Far from seeing security as an imposition into the development agenda, we in the development community must claim our central role in promoting poor people’s security and access to justice.

A call to action

Poor people’s security and access to justice should be of concern to us all but as a sector we have not got behind principles of security and justice and work on addressing these issues has gone on largely without us.

As development NGOs, we have a key role in advocating for the interests of poor and vulnerable populations. If we are absent from the debate on security and justice, policy development and programming will not stop, but the voice of some of the world’s poorest people does risk being absent.

To help start the more detailed discussions that are needed, Saferworld offers the following agenda for how we could approach security and justice within our advocacy and programming:

Recognise that poor people are entitled to security and access to justice just as they are to other basic services
Take an inclusive approach to security based on the needs of people and the state…
… but always put concern for people at the heart of work on security and justice: reforms must be locally-owned, informed by a good understanding of realities on the ground and involve the meaningful participation of those they affect
Recognise that ‘security’ and ‘justice’ are indivisible, we can’t have one without the other
Always begin with the context: what ‘security and justice institutions’ look like in some societies may be very different than in others
Coordinate, even integrate, but don’t subsume: coherent development, defence and diplomatic policy will be necessary to meet poor people’s needs – but this shouldn’t mean subsuming development policy into other objectives

We invite others to join the debate on how we might begin to better approach poor people’s security and justice as a sector.

Tom Donnelly is UK Advocacy Coordinator at Saferworld and a co-chair of the Bond Conflict Policy Group (www.bond.org.uk/groups).

Read Saferworld's report The Securitisation of Aid? Reclaiming security to meet poor people’s needs.