CiR2P Option 16 | Support security sector reform

DISCUSSION:

Security Sector Reform (SSR) involves transforming the armed forces, police and intelligence services to ensure that they are competent and accountable to and representative of broader society. SSR is vital to enhancing governance, promoting stability and increasing public trust in the state.

SSR programs can be undertaken bilaterally or multilaterally and can involve the provision of equipment and training, institutional reform such as redistributing and or consolidating personnel, salaries, as well as strategic planning, and building accountability and oversight mechanisms.

Successful climate informed SSR for human protection purposes requires the implementation of programs in the target country that directly impacts on the security sector actors themselves as well as indirectly on the political and economic context in which they operate.

Direct measures could involve establishing climate action as a priority in SSR conflict risk assessments, operational training manuals, and mediation, advisory and technical services. SSR and Disaster Risk Reduction programs can and should be linked because the security sector plays a crucial role in managing and implementing disaster risk reduction and preparedness frameworks.

Measures that could have an indirect effect include integrating SSR and Human Security programs. One of the major criticisms of SSR programs are that they too narrowly focus on operational fixes (training for example) without addressing the need for institutional and political reform. By contrast, Human Security programs address the broader social, economic and environmental (and climate change) dimensions of conflict, but the concept itself has very little operational content.