Geneva Centre for Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF)

This report presents the perspectives of Palestinian women and girls on issues related to security as well as their assessment of the services provided by local authorities and/ or the international community to address their security needs. It concludes with a series of recommendations made by Palestinian women and girls for improving these services.

The findings of this report are based on focus group discussions and in-depth interviews conducted by the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) with Palestinian women and girls between June and November 2009 in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. DCAF hopes that the report’s findings will encourage stakeholders to integrate the perspectives of women and girls into the national security debate within the Palestinian Territories.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Summary

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Background

Methodology

Maps of the Palestinian Territories

Findings

Military and Political Violence

Perceptions of Insecurity in the Public Sphere

Perceptions of Insecurity in the Home

Perceptions of the Response Mechanisms

The Recommendations of Women and Girls

Conclusion

Annexes

Annex 1: Focus Group Discussions: Questioning Route

Annex 2: Selection of Organisations Offering Services to Palestinian Women

Despite ongoing efforts to improve the accountability and effectiveness of the security sector in West Africa, the different security and justice needs of men, women, boys and girls are often marginalised and women remain largely excluded from security and defence decision-making processes. Nevertheless, there are examples of innovative initiatives taken across West Africa to integrate gender issues into security sector reform (SSR) processes and security sector institutions (SSIs).

This report highlights the lessons identified and country-specific examples shared during the regional conference “Security for All: West Africa’s Good Practices on Gender in the Security Sector” held in Saly, Senegal, 22 -24 June 2010. Organised by UNOWA and DCAF in partnership with the ECOWAS Gender Development Centre, MARWOPNET and AMLD, this working-level conference brought together over seventy gender and security sector practitioners and researchers from West Africa. The report includes guidance and examples on eight interconnected topics:

1. Gender assessments of the security sector
2. Provision of security and justice services to women and men
3. Civil society oversight: collaboration between women’s organisations, gender machineries and SSIs
4. Gender and security policies
5. Internal oversight mechanisms
6. Recruitment, retention and advancement of female security sector personnel
7. Female security sector staff associations
8. Gender training

For translation in French, click here.

Le secteur de la sécurité et le genre en Afrique de l’Ouest : une étude de la police, de la défense, de la justice et des services pénitentiaires dans les pays de la CEDEAO . Ce rapport s’efforce de méthodiquement documenter le statut de l’intégration du genre au sein des secteurs de la sécurité de 14 Etats membres de la Communauté Economique des Etats d’Afrique de l’Ouest (CEDEAO).

Ce rapport est conçu pour être une ressources pour les personnes travaillant dans, ou avec, les institutions du secteur de la sécurité ; pour ceux intéressés par les questions de gouvernance et de développement en Afrique de l’Ouest ; et pour ceux impliqués dans des problématiques liées au genre. Il regroupe les informations recueillies par des chercheurs sur le terrain, des interviews, des analyses de documents et des recherches documentaires. Une grande partie des données présentes dans ce rapport n’a jamais été publiée auparavant ou comparée entre les pays de la région.

L’étude est guidé par les deux questions suivantes : est ce que les institutions du secteur de la sécurité offre une réponse adéquate aux différents besoins en sécurité et en justices des hommes, des femmes des garçons et des filles ? Quelles démarches ont été faites afin de créer des institutions équitables, représentatives et non-discriminatoires en leur sein ?

Ce rapport contient 3 sections principales : une introduction, un résumé et une analyse des résultats et enfin des profils individuels de pays. L’introduction fournit des éléments de contexte sur les justifications, la méthodologie, les définitions et les défis  rencontrés durant les recherches pour l’étude. La section suivante propose une analyse croisée des résultats de l’étude entre les pays et les institutions et s’achève sur une liste de recommandations clés. Les 14 profils-pays détaillés présentent de manière facile à lire, bien que détaillée les informations structurées autour de 101 indicateurs sur la gouvernance nationale, les services de police, les forces armées et la gendarmerie, le système judicaire et les services pénitentiaires.

Le rapport complet, ainsi que les profils pays individuels peut être consulté en ligne, à http://www.dcaf.ch/DCAF/EZ/Publications/The-Security-Sector-and-Gender-in-West-Africa-A-survey-of-police-defence-justice-and-penal-services-in-ECOWAS-states.

Pour plus d’informations, veuillez contacter gender@dcaf.ch

Over the past two decades, in response to the underwhelming results of international development efforts across the Third World, arguments concerning the importance of local ownership have been gaining currency within the international development community. At its core, the discourse around ownership revolves around fundamental questions of agency: who decides, who controls, who implements, and who evaluates. The growing emphasis on local ownership, then, emerged as a critique of mainstream development practice and the broader cult of Western expertise which underpins it. As Joseph Stiglitz argued a decade ago, a vision of development in which all the answers and all the agency are seen to lie in the hands of foreigners is inherently problematic and ultimately self-defeating: ‘We have seen again and again that [local] ownership is essential for successful transformation: policies that are imposed from outside may be grudgingly accepted on a superficial basis, but will rarely be implemented as intended’. Since then, the principle of local ownership has been viewed increasingly as a precondition for effective development assistance, even if
the translation of the principle into actual practice remains an ongoing challenge.

The eighth edition in DCAF’s Yearly Book series examines theconceptual and operational dimensions of Security Sector Transformation inAfrica. African knowledge and experience has contributed much to theevolution of the security sector reform (SSR) concept while Africa continuesto be the main arena for SSR programmes. Consequently, over the years,DCAF has actively sought to expand its knowledge base, policy researchfocus and operational activities on African security sector reform andgovernance issues. For these reasons it is therefore particularly appropriatethat DCAF focuses on this subject in 2010 – the 10th anniversary of thecreation of the DCAF foundation.

This publication is the result of the first of two joint workshops between the two tracks with the participation of the PfP-C Security Sector Reform Working Group and the Regional Stability South Caucasus Study Group. The meeting took place in November 2003 in Reichenau, Austria, hosted by the Austrian Ministry of Defense (represented by the National Defense Academy and the Bureau for Security Policy). It reflects the excellent possibilities and opportunities the Consortium provides for interdisciplinary, comparative and crosscountry studies. It shows how unconventional ideas and new initiatives can be tested without immediately having major political impacts. This is what makes the PfP Consortium so unique and deserves our support and attention.

As part of a new series in a joint ISIS DCAF project, "Communicate, Coordinate and Cooperate: the A-Z of Cohering EU Crisis Management in the post-Lisbon Era", this first paper highlights some major operational challenges that hinder Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) mission planners and field personnel from effectively implementing security sector reform (SSR) missions. Member States have launched thirteen SSR missions without mustering the political will to supply sufficient adequately-trained personnel, money and equipment.

Member States must decide on whether or not they want the EU to become a viable international actor in the field of SSR. If so, they must clearly prioritise future CSDP missions in order not to waste scarce resources through mere flag raising exercises. Therefore, and in addition to addressing the operational needs mentioned above, the EU needs to agree on an SSR strategy in the EAS which would clarify the concrete criteria for intervention as well as objectives to be achieved in the framework of SSR-related CSDP missions.

Gender analysis of actual SSR processes is sorely lacking in the SSR literature. In ‘Poster Boys No More: Gender and Security Sector Reform in Timor-Leste’ Henri Myrttinen breaks new ground in examining the gender dimensions of the DDR and SSR processes in Timor-Leste, with a focus on the establishment of the police and armed forces. The paper explores issues such as: how men’s roles relate to gang violence and relationships of patronage that undermine the security services, how women have been incorporated into the new security services and how the security services are addressing gender-based violence. It shows how a gender perspective can add to our understanding of many of the social processes at work in Timor-Leste and help to find solutions to some of the main security issues in the country, making recommendations for Timor-Leste’s ongoing SSR processes.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Background to the DDR/SSR Process

3. Gender Roles in Timor-Leste 
3.1 Women and girls
3.2 Men and boys

4. Violence, Insecurity and Gender 
4.1 Masculinities and the legitimacy of violence 
4.2 Patrons and clients 
4.3 Gender-based violence

5. FALINTIL-Forças de Defesa de Timor-Leste (F-FDTL) 
5.1 Structure 
5.2 Recruitment and training 
5.3 Internal tensions and external problems

6. Policía Nacional de Timor-Leste (PNTL) 
6.1 Structure 
6.2 Recruitment and training 
6.3 GBV and the Vulnerable Persons Units 
6.4 Internal and external problems of the PNTL

7. The 2006 Crisis 
7.1 Overview of events 
7.2 Aftermath of the crisis

8. Overview of Post-2006 SSR Developments 
8.1 The F-FDTL 
8.2 The PNTL 
8.3 The SSR process

9. Analysis and Policy Recommendations

Appendix 1. Timeline of key events from 1974-2009

Appendix 2. Overview of UN Missions in Timor-Leste 1999-2009

In recent years trafficking in human beings has become an issue of increasingconcern to European states. Trafficking in human beings is understood as ahuman rights issue, a violation of labour and migration laws, and as underminingnational and international security through its links to organised crime andcorruption.

United Nations agencies, the European Union, the Council of Europe and theOrganisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, amongst others, makeimportant contributions to coordinating the fight against human trafficking.However, there remain significant deficits in concrete information sharing andcooperation between the security agencies of different states necessary to achieve success. In many countries, cooperation among local security sector actors, other state agencies and non governmental organisations has improved. However, ensuring that the human rights of trafficking victims are protected requires more substantial training and specialised operational procedures within the security sector.

This paper brings a governance analysis to security sector responses to humantrafficking. It focuses on security governance approaches concerningcriminalisation and harmonisation of laws, prosecution of traffickers, protectionof trafficked persons, prevention in countries of origin and prevention incountries of destination. The authors identify key shortcomings in current securityresponses to human trafficking, and make recommendations to states with aparticular focus on national and international coordination and the prevention ofhuman trafficking.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. The Nature and Scope of Trafficking in Human Beings
2.1. Key concepts
2.2. Overview of Global Patterns in Human Trafficking
2.3. Overview of Patterns in Human Trafficking in Europe
2.4. Both Organised Crime and Violation of Human Rights

3. A Security Governance Analysis of Responses toTrafficking in Human Beings

4. Improving Security Sector Responses to Traffickingin Human Beings
4.1. Legal measures
4.2. Prosecution
4.3. Protection
4.4. Prevention in Countries of Origin
4.5. Prevention in Countries of Destination

5. Conclusions

Appendix

In recent years trafficking in human beings has become an issue of increasingconcern to European states. Trafficking in human beings is understood as ahuman rights issue, a violation of labour and migration laws, and as underminingnational and international security through its links to organised crime andcorruption.

United Nations agencies, the European Union, the Council of Europe and theOrganisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, amongst others, makeimportant contributions to coordinating the fight against human trafficking.However, there remain significant deficits in concrete information sharing andcooperation between the security agencies of different states necessary to achieve success. In many countries, cooperation among local security sector actors, other state agencies and non governmental organisations has improved. However, ensuring that the human rights of trafficking victims are protected requires more substantial training and specialised operational procedures within the security sector.

This paper brings a governance analysis to security sector responses to humantrafficking. It focuses on security governance approaches concerningcriminalisation and harmonisation of laws, prosecution of traffickers, protectionof trafficked persons, prevention in countries of origin and prevention incountries of destination. The authors identify key shortcomings in current securityresponses to human trafficking, and make recommendations to states with aparticular focus on national and international coordination and the prevention ofhuman trafficking.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. The Nature and Scope of Trafficking in Human Beings
2.1. Key concepts
2.2. Overview of Global Patterns in Human Trafficking
2.3. Overview of Patterns in Human Trafficking in Europe
2.4. Both Organised Crime and Violation of Human Rights

3. A Security Governance Analysis of Responses toTrafficking in Human Beings

4. Improving Security Sector Responses to Traffickingin Human Beings
4.1. Legal measures
4.2. Prosecution
4.3. Protection
4.4. Prevention in Countries of Origin
4.5. Prevention in Countries of Destination

5. Conclusions

Appendix

There is a clear need to better understand the relationship between two concepts at the heart of peacebuilding: the Rule of Law (RoL), and Security Sector Reform (SSR). If it is acknowledged in principle that they are interdependent, in practice enduring conceptual ambiguities and contradictions undermine latent synergies. As a consequence, international donor agencies are under increasing pressure to demonstrate the benefits of their RoL and SSR assistance. This SSR Paper moves the RoL-SSR debate forward through examining these activities jointly within a peacebuilding context. It proposes a heuristic framework that helps to rationalize this relationship on a conceptual level, demonstrating that RoL and SSR are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. The resulting framework provides a basis for the development of coherent policies that can support the development of coordinated, complementary programmes on the ground. 

Available to download at:

http://www.dcaf.ch/Publications/The-Rule-of-Law-and-Security-Sector-Reform-Conceptualising-a-Complex-Relationship

The importance of security sector reform (SSR) has increasingly been emphasizedin international engagement with post-conflict countries. Many governments and UN and donor agencies have emphasized women’s participation and efforts to achieve gender equality as crucial elements of post-conflict reconstruction. In 2000 the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1325 on ‘Women, peace and security4, highlighting the interdependence of postconflict gender equality, peacebuilding and security. Women are acknowledged as playing important roles in peacebuilding and in sustaining security on a communal level. Gender inequality is understood to inhibit development and violence against women to be a pervasive form of insecurity with widespread ill-effects across society. There is also growing awareness of the need to address the particular experiences of men and boys, both as victims and as sources of insecurity.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Gender and security sector reform
2.1 Gender and security
2.2 Gender and (in)security in post-conflict settings
2.3 Principles for integrating gender in security sector reform

3. Gender mainstreaming and promoting women’s participation in post-conflict security sector reform
3.1 Gender mainstreaming in security sector reform
3.2 The challenge of women’s participation in security sectorreform
3.3 Women’s civil society groups in security sector reform
3.4 Women parliamentarians in security sector reform

4. Securing women’s full and equal participation in post-conflictsecurity situations
4.1 The challenge of women’s participation in security services
4.2 Women’s participation within post-confl ict security services

5. Gender and specifi c post-conflict security sector reform issues
5.1 Integrating gender in disarmament, demobilization and reintegration
5.2 Integrating gender in transitional justice and justice reform

6. Conclusions

Since the 1990s, internationally-supported peacebuilding interventions have become increasingly prominent. Activities focusing on rule of law and security institutions are a key component of this agenda. Despite increasing calls for more rigorous analysis of the impact of peacebuilding interventions, conceptual advances have been limited. There is little clarity on what is working, what is not, and why. This SSR Paper seeks to address this gap by mapping relevant approaches and methodologies to measuring impact. It examines how international actors have approached these questions in relation to support to rule of law and security institutions in complex peacebuilding environments. Most significantly, the paper demonstrates that measuring impact is not only feasible but necessary in order to maximise the effectiveness of major international investments in this field.

Available for download at: 

http://www.dcaf.ch/Publications/Measuring-the-Impact-of-Peacebuilding-Interventions-on-Rule-of-Law-and-Security-Institutions

This publication summarizes the proceedings of the seminar entitled “Women, Peace, and Security:From Resolution to Action. Ten years of Security Council Resolution 1325”, held in Geneva on 15 September 2010. Convened jointly by the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG), the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the European Union and the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), the seminar is part of an ongoing series of joint events hosted by DCAF and UNOG since 2003, addressing various aspects of security governance.

In most security sector institutions, women constitute a small minority of the personnel. Unwelcoming working environments discourage recruitment and retention of women, and thus create a vicious circle that perpetuates their minority status. At the same time, female security sector staff associations have multiplied, promoting networking and offering mutual support among members. Many of these associations have expanded their mandate to activities reaching beyond their members’ welfare.

This occasional paper examines the structures, mandates and activities of a sampling of female staff associations and networks in the security sector, analyses whether and how they meet members’ needs, and gauges the effect or influence they have had on changing policies and practices in their institutions and in the communities they serve. Research for this paper focused on 67 international, national, regional, and local female security sector associations and networks in the military, police, corrections, justice system, fire and emergency services, immigration services, and in national security bodies and private security companies from around the world. An annex to the paper provides more information on the associations studied.

DCAF conducted a mapping study on Gender and Security Sector Reform Actors and Activities in Liberia from November 2010 to March 2011. The mapping study was undertaken by an independent consultant, Mr Cecil Griffiths from the Liberian National Law Enforcement Association (LINLEA). This research was made possible thanks to the cooperation of most gender and SSR actors in Liberia including the Ministry of Gender and Development (MoGD), the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) and the Civil Society Organization Working Group on Security Sector Reform.

This project aimed to complement existing information on gender and SSR issues in Liberia and to reinforce information-sharing and coordination between actors.

On 31 March 2011, LINLEA and DCAF organised a workshop in Monrovia to complete and validate the findings of the study. In addition to validating the findings of the study, the participants made key recommendations related to gender and training, policy development, programmes and activities. The report was launched in Monrovia on 23 September 2011.

The Partnership for Peace Consortium’s Security Sector Reform Working Group held a workshop entitled “Gender & Security Sector Reform” from 17 to 19 February 2010. The workshop, hosted by DCAF, was an opportunity for thirty-six practitioners, researchers and policy advisors from sixteen NATO and PfP countries to discuss and exchange on ongoing efforts and challenges to integrating a gender perspective into SSR. The workshop focused on best practices and examples from the ground in both national and international security sector institutions, including NATO peace support operations, ministries of defence, and armed forces.

The report, co-drafted by the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (formerly known as the Centre for Civil-Military Relations) and the Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence with the support of DCAF, presents the findings of the needs assessment on gender and SSR in Serbia.

It
• Generates a detailed baseline for the current state of gender mainstreaming in security sector institutions at the central, provincial and municipal level;
• Identifies local needs, gaps and shortcomings of current SSR processes, and prioritizes needs which should be addressed by national authorities and civil society, with the support of the international donor community, including DCAF’s gender and SSR project.

The needs assessment is built on desk research, interviews, and a series of local stakeholder consultations conducted in Novi Sad, Kragujevac, Novi Pazar, Bujanovac and Belgrade in the course of March and April 2010. It forms the building block of DCAFs dedicated and long term gender and SSR project in Serbia.

Intervening states apply different approaches to the use force in war-torn countries. Calibrating the use of force according to the situation on the ground requires a convergence of military and police roles: soldiers have to be able to scale down, and police officers to scale up their use of force. In practice, intervening states display widely differing abilities to demonstrate such versatility. This paper argues that these differences are shaped by how the domestic institutions of sending states mediate between demands for versatile force and their own intervention practices. It considers the use of force by Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States in three contexts of international intervention: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Afghanistan. The paper highlights quite different responses to security problems as varied as insurgency, terrorism, organised crime and riots. This analysis offers important lessons. Those planning and implementing international interventions should take into account differences in the use of force. At the same time, moving towards versatile force profoundly changes the characteristics of security forces and may increase their short-term risks. This difficulty points to a key message emerging from this paper: effective, sustainable support to states emerging from conflict will only be feasible if intervening states reform their own security policies and practices.

Penal reform activities have been carried on in Europe and the United States sinceat least the late eighteenth century. Security sector reform (SSR), a much newerconcept, is a governance-driven approach that looks to strengthen the roles ofboth state and non-state actors to deliver security to individuals and communities.As such, attention to the penal system is important in any comprehensive SSR process. However, much SSR programming overlooks penal elements, and lessonslearnt through long experience in penal reform have not been applied to other SSR activities. There is limited discourse between the penal reform community ofpractice and the wider SSR community. This paper seeks to initiate a dialogue concerning the relationship between penal reform and wider security sector reform and governance. It is based on desk research and a number of interviews with penal reform practitioners. Follow this link for the publication.

The aim of this paper is to account for the evolution of the draft Code, and to examine its relationship (if any) to similar initiatives within and beyond Africa. Following this brief introduction therefore, the paper attempts to place the draft Code within the context of general trends in civil-military relations in Africa. It then traces the evolutionary process of the African Code, within the context of similar and related initiatives and processes in Africa. The paper also identifies the main provisions of the Code. It compares the OSCE Code to the draft African Code, pointing out similarities and differences and the extent to which the former was a model for the latter. The paper then identifies matters arising in the drive to achieve the adoption and implementation of the present draft African Code. The paper is concluded with recommendations which could enrich the CoC and create the basis for more viable articulation of the agenda of democratic control of armedand security forces in Africa.

DCAF's newest addition to its SSR series has just been published, co-authored by Albrecht Schnabel and Marc Krupanski and titled "Mapping Evolving Internal Roles of the Armed Forces." It is widely assumed, at least from a Western perspective, that the armed forces provide national defence against external threats. In reality, within many consolidated Western democracies the armed forces are assuming an increasingly wide range of internal roles and tasks. These can include domestic security roles and the provision of humanitarian assistance in situations of natural or humanitarian catastrophe, often under the command and control of different civilian agencies. This SSR Paper seeks to make sense of this complex reality. Different internal roles of armed forces are analysed, drawing on the cases of Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Through carefully examining evolving internal roles and identifying patterns and lessons from these experiences, this SSR Paper provides an important contribution to understanding the evolving nature of contemporary armed forces.

This study focuses on EU support to SSR in the form of CSDP missions, analysing recent developments in the EU's internal set-up, capacities and training arrangements for mission personnel. It is based on interviews with mission personnel, Brussels-based officials and secondary sources.

This chapter examines the security sector reform in Iraq after the end of major combat operations in April 2003. The author discusses the Polish contribution to stabilization and reconstruction as member of the US-led 'coalition of the willing.' He draws the conclusion that an augmentation of NATO capabilities in post-conflict reconstruction, particularly security sector reform, would enable it to better face the challenges of the strategic environment in Iraq.

This publication contains two sections: First, an introductory text on parliamentary oversight with the aim to help parliamentarians and non-parliamentarians alike to understand what the powers of an ambitious, competent and well-prepared parliament and its committees can be and what good they can do. Secondly, the publication contains a ‘self-assessment’ kit that helps parliamentary and non-parliamentary security and governance experts understand where their parliament stands and what further improvements could be made in the light of ‘best practices’.

The fourth in the series of NATO-PA – DCAF public conferences highlighting and the discussing the principal challenges to the transatlantic security agenda focused on the dual prerogatives of security sector reform and establishing the rule of law in Afghanistan. Afghanistan remains of paramount importance for allies on both sides of the Atlantic, and for the international community as a whole. At NATO’s Bucharest summit at the beginning of April 2008, all major international actors reaffirmed their commitment to the Afghan people, yet much remains to be done to provide the conditions for a stable and prosperous Afghanistan, not least to create local ownership of security problems.

This report intends to show the latest developments in security sector reform (SSR) legislation in four Central Asian states. Kazakhstan’s open sources offer the most comprehensive overview of the latest legislation adopted between 2005 and 2011. Kyrgyzstan’s resources are accessible as well, but following the violent regime change in April and the ethnic violence in June 2010, the Parliament and government have started revising many of the laws related to the Interior Ministry and Judicial sector. Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have only few pieces of legislation available to the public. The report does not analyse whether changes in the law translated into more democratic and more open control over the military.

En partenariat avec le Centre pour le contrôle démocratique des forces armées - Genève (DCAF), l’association tunisienne « Le Labo’ Démocratique » a organisé les 12 et 13 novembre 2011 à Tunis une conférence sur la question de la gestion des archives de la police politique en Tunisie. Cette conférence a été l’occasion d’un débat instructif introduit par des communications sur les expériences vécues par d’autres pays en la matière, ainsi que la projection d’un documentaire inédit sur les méthodes de la police politique tunisienne.

Site web de la conférence : http://projetpolicepolitique.wordpress.com/

The first ever regional conference on “Integrating Human Security into National Security Policies in North-West Africa” was hosted in Rabat 23-24 November 2010 by the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy Studies (CEDHD) and the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), with the support of Switzerland. The conference brought together a large number of high-ranking representatives from North-West Africa and the Sahel region (Algeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal) as well as a number of international experts. This was the first event of its kind to consider the development and implementation of national security policy from the regional perspective of North-West Africa.

This DCAF backgrounder provides an introduction to the concept of national security policy. The paper explains why states need a national security policy, what the legal basis for such policies is, and how they are structured, formulated, and implemented. The backgrounder concludes with an overview of the main principles necessary for an effective and democratic national security policy.

On October 20 and 21, 2011, the Africa Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS) - United States, the Geneva Center for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), the African Institute for Security Sector Transformation (AISST)- Partners- Senegal, held a joint conference on the theme “Developing a Guinean National Security Policy.” The conference brought together members of the Guinea’s ACSS community, as well as official representatives from the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Security, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the National Transition Council, and Guinean civil society organizations. Contributions by speakers and attendees brought to light the necessary preconditions for ensuring that the national security policy (NSP) development process remains credible and effective.

Speaker presentations focusing on the experiences of other countries in the region fueled a discussion about Guinea’s true needs, in light of current and future threats that the country must manage. 

During these discussions, participants underlined the unique characteristics of Guinea’s situation, in particular highlighting the similarities and differences between the political, economic and geographic contexts of Guinea and the other countries in the region.

Particular emphasis was placed on the consultative process implemented for developing Guinea’s national security policy. The experiences of participating members of the National Security Sector Reform Steering Committee also contributed to this reflective exercise.

In the end, it was concluded that discussions must be continued and developed in further depth.

To view this publication, follow this link.

Under the aegis of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) DCAF undertook three case studies in Burkina Faso, Burundi and Senegal each of which was prepared by country experts. Each study seeks to identify and facilitate the exchange of good practices and experiences between the states concerned, as well as among similar institutions around the world. Each study examines relevant national institutions, as well as their legal status, shedding light on their strengths and weaknesses and contributing to an evaluation of their capacity building needs. Each study also includes details of their complaints handling procedures and of standards that may be relevant to other similar institutions, contributing as a result to a deepened understanding of their mandates, remit, and functioning. Furthermore, these case studies provide a snapshot of the state of security sector governance in each of the three countries, as well as the progress of ongoing reforms.

The National Dialogue, co-hosted by the Liberian Transitional Government and UNMIL, brings together all statutory security agencies of Liberia to help address the critical problem of Security Reform, which is attributed to the main causes of the Liberian conflict. This report summarizes the discussions that took place among these stakeholders