Bibliotheken Online

Strategy, Jointness, Capacity

Institutional Requirements for Supporting Security Sector Reform

Konstantin Bärwaldt

Buch

englisch

Bärwaldt, Konstantin (Ed.) DNB

Friedrich Ebert Stiftung

Berlin

2018

74 p.

Promoting security and justice in conflict-affected and fragile contexts is in many ways central to women’s and men’s lives. In their external engagements Western
donors often seek to address the security needs by enhancing the capacities of local security institutions and by promoting reforms in the respective security sectors (police, military, justice authorities, executive and ministries, parliaments, oversight bodies) and the overarching governance system. For the purpose of this study, all these activities are broadly defined as »security sector reform« (SSR).Unfortunately, empirical evidence suggests that most of these SSR programs, in particular those aimed at training and equipping security institutions, have not produced
the desired results. When it comes to the implementation of SSR programmes, it is striking that the political nature of security provision and governance in fragile and
transformative countries is often not matched by an equally political strategy on the part of the Western donors. The ways in which donors plan, organize, operate and implement their SSR programs is often fundamentally at odds with the politically dynamic nature of change processes in recipient states. Lacking results are mainly due to the complex and turbulent political environments in which the initiatives are pursued. But it is also owing to the fact that governments
and international organizations are weakly positioned to plan, implement, evaluate and adapt their SSR engagements.
By comparing the SSR policies of the USA, Netherlands, Germany, France and the United Kingdom – and two international organisations – the European Union and
the African Union – this study derives recommendations about how implementing bureaucracies can develop and implement an urgently needed »political approach« in their SSR programmes.

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