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Security and Development Policies: Untangling the Relationship

Author: N Tschirgi
Date: 2005
Size: 19 pages (82 kB)

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Summary

Over the past decade the importance of integrating security and development policies has been heavily emphasised. What are the impediments to designing security and development policies that are compatible and mutually reinforcing? How far have they been integrated in practice? This paper from the International Peace Academy (IPA) draws on recent research to examine the relationship between security and development policies. It argues that international policies are not equal to the developmental and security challenges facing developing countries in the 21st century.

Since the end of the Cold War, development agencies have recognised the interdependence of economic well being and physical security, and it has become a policy mantra. There are, however, four major impediments to designing relevant policies: (1) There is conceptual confusion, as the debate takes place at multiple levels, from local to global (2) The task of interlinking security and development is further complicated by the fact that they are very broad and elusive concepts (3) Policy prescriptions tend to be more process-, rather than content-driven (4) There is a failure to recognise that linking security and development differentially affects the political interests of both policy making actors and their beneficiaries.

Existing literature, along with the IPA research programme "The Security and Development Nexus", find that:

• Developing countries face risks that cross-cut many sectors and that are the outcome of broad socio-economic and political forces beyond the control of governments. However, policies at the macro level deal with these risks in a compartmentalised way.
• At country level there are tensions and inconsistencies resulting from multiple agendas. Also, studies of security policies yield few examples of strategies to deal with proximate causes of conflict through linked-up socio-economic policies.
• There are significant institutional issues: National governments lack the resources to deal with the multiplicity of different donors, but also resist co-ordination efforts due to unease at the idea of a 'donor cartel'.
• There is a huge gap between policy makers and implementers. Poor knowledge management, inadequate learning mechanisms, lack of institutional memory and lack of common understanding of the linkages between programme areas exacerbate this.
• It is extremely difficult to map donor activities and funding in individual countries, which compounds the absence of strategic approaches to countries' interlinked problems.
• External intervention in conflict-prone countries is inescapably political. For example, there is evidence that donor emphasis on strengthening formal state institutions may be at the expense of national political dialogue and accommodation.

The security-development nexus reveals the gulf between global vulnerabilities that cut across the human, national and international levels, and the structure of the current international system which is shaped by the interests of nation states. There are three gaps to be addressed:

• The research-policy gap: There should be thematic research on different risk factors, underpinned by tracing of the political context. The dynamic interaction between security and development conditions in different contexts cannot be overemphasised.
• The policy-practice gap: There is a need for a body of independent and systematic studies to assess the implementation of policies on the ground. Agency-based best practice units do not provide a sound basis for assessment.
• The policy-politics gap: The current reactive approach is not sustainable, and preventive strategies are important to prevent structural vulnerabilities becoming violent conflicts.