Human Security Coordination

Local Ownership in Security: Case Studies of Peacebuilding Approaches

This report (download here) explores ways to achieve meaningful local ownership in the security sector. It provides nearly forty case studies of civil society and security actors using the principles of peacebuilding to work together towards human security.

Each case study highlights the efforts that civil society and security actors have undertaken in order to reach out to each other, create collaborative processes and participatory mechanisms to solve problems related to human security in particular local or national context. The report also tries to draw out lessons from these cases to help those who are seeking to engage with the civil society or security actors to improve human security to achieve better results.

Chapter 2-6 provide examples of civil society-military-police in five areas: capacity-building, policy-community platforms, peacebuilding approaches to DDR, gender mainstreaming, national-level platforms.

Chapter 7 summarises some of the
practical challenges of local ownership and coordination. It pulls out key themes, lessons learned and patterns across the case studies. 

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Chapter 2:

Capacity Building for
Human Security

Training has a number of functions related to
local ownership in security. Training play a role
in capacity building for both civil society and
security forces to enable basic understanding,
shared terminology, and skills necessary to
work together. It also plays a role in
building trust and relationships between
civil-society and security forces.

Training often is a starting point, enabling
dialogue, problem solving and more advanced
levels of joint coordination for human security.

Most of the case studies in this section of the report document how civil society is providing training to security forces to help them improve their
community engagement strategies.


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Chapter 3:

Police-Community
Platforms for Local Ownership

A peacebuilding approach to policing
emphasises the rapport between police forces
and the communities they serve. It aims to engage local citizens as much as possible in policing policies and operations. The idea behind this approach, which puts local ownership at the centre, is that human security will improve significantly when police engage directly
with civil society.

Each of the following cases illustrates
some of these various elements of an approach
to policing that is based on local ownership.


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Pakistan: Bridging Traditional Justice with Policing

Chapter 4:

Local Ownership in DDR

DDR complements SSR/D by disarming, demobilising and reintegrating armed groups back into society. DDR contributes to human security by reducing the number of weapons and armed groups, reknitting social relationships and helping combatants transition to civilian livelihoods. Peacebuilding skills and processes can be used within DDR programs.

This chapter describes four case studies where peacebuilding skills and processes
support more effective DDR.

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Chapter 5:

Gender Mainstreaming
in Security

Local ownership of security requires that all women, men, girls, boys, as well as lesbians, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex people (LGBTI) contribute to defining security threats and strategies. People affected by sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) may have different security needs depending on their gender identity.

The following case studies show how peacebuilding organisations approach SGBV and the inclusion of women in different contexts.

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Chapter 6:

National Level Platforms
for Local Ownership

Earlier chapters in this volume illustrate
the creative and inspiring work to improve
local ownership.

This chapter explores national-level case studies
of efforts to improve local ownership and human security. The case studies generally fit into three categories - national security challenges, national peace councils, and joint institutional oversight
- with some efforts indicating more robust
levels of local ownership than others.

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Chapter 7:
Common Challenges and Lessons Learned

Some common patterns and themes emerge from the case studies providing insights into
how peacebuilding organisations address the challenges they encounter on the ground.

This chapter draws out the challenges and lessons learned identified in the case studies.

 
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