Open Society Foundation (Open Society Foundation)

This Think Piece prepared by Niagalé Bagayoko for the Learning Lab on Security Sector Governance in Africa addresses the implications of hybrid security for Security Sector Reform (SSR).  After presenting the challenges institutions operating alongside or within nominally formal political institutions bring to SSR, the author calls for better identifying the interactions and interpenetrations of formal and informal networks that constitute as a whole “hybrid security orders”.

In order to build a better understanding of all the actors, particularly informal actors, who have an influence on the security sector at large and can thus affect SSR processes, the author proposes some entry points: to map out the informal actors and the informal norms, solidarities, and networks in the security sector; to build capacity to orient their activities towards supporting SSR; to help develop empirically grounded programmes and policies; and to help in the design of oversight as well as monitoring and evaluation processes.

This think piece, prepared by Boubacar N’Diaye and Eboe Hutchful (ASSN) for the Learning Lab on Security Sector Governance in Africa, looks at the challenges and implications to improve ‘civil-military relations’ (CMR) for a better protection of a democratic public space. The document explains how, since the end of the Cold war, the academic field of CMR has gone into decline whilst SSR has been ascending. If CMR focused insufficiently on the micro-politics of security institutions, it is argued that SSR has not necessarily resulted in integrated approaches. SSR is thus particularly challenged in this sector, with weak budgetary and expenditure controls and corruption in the security sector. There is also a potential for reversals in current CMR, as has been demonstrated recently in Uganda and Congo-Brazzaville, where police, military and paramilitary forces were used to violently suppress protests. To engage in efforts to improve CMR in Africa, it is argued that it is important to identify states where efforts already started, under the leadership of a new generation of military leaders who are willing to embrace new roles and responsibilities for civilian institutions.

This Think Piece prepared by Alan Bryden for the Learning Lab on Security Sector Governance in Africa explores the issue of private security. The paper highlights a lack of knowledge or understanding on the scale, activities, and implications of the private security industry in Africa. Private security provision, and the lack of knowledge on the topic, can affect Security Sector Reform (SSR) in a variety of ways: the state has an incomplete view of the actors providing security on the national territory, there is a blurring of roles and responsibilities between public and private security, private security can result in greater security for some while leaving insecurity to others, and security privatisation remains somewhat neglected in programmatic responses.

The author proposes some entry points to engage with private security and better understand the related issues. Fostering African research capabilities can further the development of an evidence base to increase the visibility of the issue, while developing the legal and policy frameworks on oversight and accountability is a step to control the growth and evolution of the private security sector. Furthermore, the author argues for supporting capacity building of security sector management and oversight bodies, for empowering civil society, and leveraging international initiatives to create momentum for change.

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Outdated legal frameworks, under-capacitated parliaments, and submissive judicial authorities fail to provide the oversight, transparency or accountability that is required to protect human rights and uphold the rule of law. 

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What is difficult about SSR in Africa? On one level, the framing conditions are undoubtedly challenging. Change of the kind that SSR aims for is measured in decades – even generations – rather than the months or years that measure national political cycles or donor programmes. Moreover, in most contexts the resources to support transformational change have also been scarce, whether human, material, technical or financial. On a more fundamental level, SSR is highly political and context-specific. If it is treated as a technical process abstracted from national political, security, socio-economic and cultural realities, it will not succeed.

There are also undoubted weaknesses and gaps in current SSR approaches. Different understandings of what SSR involves and who it concerns have led to flawed interventions that bred mistrust and suspicion, including between national and international understandings of reform.

The fact remains that freer and fairer democratic societies require more accountable and more effective security provision. In spite of the factors that limit progress in SSR, experience has shown that important progress can be made when internal and external support for reform align at opportune moments for change. New legal architecture for state security provision, fairer and more inclusive security recruitment, broader-based access to justice, more efficient management and oversight, and increased public scrutiny of security affairs are examples of reform that mark valuable progress in security governance. Moreover, progress can materialise in unexpected and intangible forms; thus, some of the most catalytic changes in people’s experiences of security have flowed from apparently subjective shifts in attitudes towards things like more inclusive security policy-making, greater sensitivity to human rights in security provision, or a strengthened resolve among overseers to make the most of their legal authority.

The ‘Learning Lab on Security Sector Governance and Reform in Africa’ drew on the experience of academics, researchers, policy makers and practitioners in this field in order to explore these challenges and identify ways to move forward in spite of them. To support these reflections, this Background Paper provides a baseline understanding of SSG/R concepts, policies and practice. It then considers key challenges for SSR in Africa before assessing programming gaps and potential entry points for engagement. This Background Paper is complemented by six Think Pieces, which intended to help shape discussion during the different sessions of the Learning Lab.

Access all material related to the ‘Learning Lab on Security Sector Governance and Reform in Africa’ to find out more.

This think piece, prepared by Ornella Moderan (DCAF) for the Learning Lab on Security Sector Governance in Africa, looks at the opportunities and challenges for the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in the development of a regional agenda for security sector governance and reform. If major steps have already been made with the African Union Policy Framework on Security Reform (2013) as well as with the work of ECOWAS to develop a common normative framework, the transposition of theoretical standards into practice remains a challenge. Providing member states with multidimensional support also poses a number of questions in terms of their own mandates and capacities. The implications for SSR are outlined in the paper and these vary from contextualising international discourse on SSR to national ownership and regional support. Omella Moderan outlines various entry points for engagement, from fostering regional capacities for policy implementation to reinforcing AU-ECOWAS coordination.

This think piece prepared by Sandy Africa (ASSN) for the Learning Lab on Security Sector Governance in Africa explains that civilian democratic oversight and control is a necessary, though not exclusive, precondition for accountable and legitimate security. By civilian democratic oversight is meant the exercise of the mandatory authority of one body to hold another to account. The author argues that in countries experiencing armed conflict, the civilian democratic oversight of the security sector is weak or non-existent. There is a window of opportunity to engage in civilian democratic oversight when there is a cessation of hostilities but even then, the immediate challenges are peacekeeping and peace enforcement. A more realistic prospect happens when there is a conducive and decisive shift in the political conditions.

This think piece prepared by Fairlie Chappuis (DCAF) for the Learning Lab on Security Sector Governance in Africa aims at encouraging open debate on the essential role of civil society and media in good security governance as well as the challenges they face. Civil society, by which is meant all groups that engage in voluntary collective actions in the public interest, has an essential role to play in order to ensure that the security sector is accountable, transparent and responsive to the public.  The paper outlines common factors in a variety of African contexts which make society activism and media engagement challenging. It then gives a list of entry points for engagement and how these can help to align civil society and media values with the principles of democratic security governance, human rights and rule of law.