Stephen Jackson

Stephen Jackson, the Chief of Staff of the UN Office in Burundi, provides insight into following topics of interest in SSR programming:

• perverse incentives in DDR programming
• the principle of Do No Harm in peacedeals and ceasefires
• bridging the capacity gap
• the need to incentivise a national security strategy process
• the sustainability of SSR and the need for a long-term vision

See Part 2 of this interview.

Here are a few quotes from the interview

the best form of hygiene is sunlight [re budgetary transparency]

It takes a full generation to move an institution up one notch in institutional strength. It's not to take Afghanistan and turn it tomorrow into Switzerland but to take Afghanistan and maybe get it to be Nigeria - that takes a generation...

We over-estimate dependency a great deal - absence of institutional strength and financial strength are two related problems which aren't going to be addressed in the first 25 years...

Maybe the problem isn't handing [an SSR programme] over too late, it's having too short a vision.

View Part 1 of this interview.

Stephen Jackson, the Chief of Staff of the UN Office in Burundi, provides insight into following topics of interest in SSR programming:

• maintaining enthusiasm for SSR 
• resuscitating SSR enthusiasm 
• coordination and the success of SSR
• the role of gender in SSR
• advice for SSR advisers

"Where SSR has moved forward at some kind of a pace, it's usually been in a context where a single lead partner was prepared to take on a very central role and assume the risk that goes with that." Stephen Jackson

Stephen Jackson, Chief of Staff at the UN Office in Burundi, discusses the role gender plays in SSR and considers why a gender component is not a standard part of all SSR programmes.

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"Gender often falls low down the list in terms of outcomes in a security sector reform process..... it's not as if that agenda is enormously well advanced in a lot of the partners countries, let's be honest." Stephen Jackson

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