The connection between community security and Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR), is largely omitted in current policy and is unexplored in both academic and policy literature. This report, by the Peace Security and Development Network, reviews the existing literature on this link and identifies a number of weaknesses in DDR processes that stem from a lack of focus on community security. Local actors have limited influence on donors and national governments, which limits the possibilities for DDR programmes to reinforce community security arrangements, and vice versa.
Community security is defined to constitute both an end state and a process. In the first instance, communities should feel secure from threats exerted by violent conflict, arms proliferation, crime, and a lack of protection or direct threat by the state. In the second instance, communities should participate in identifying and prioritising their security needs as well as appropriate responses to meet these needs. Community-based DDR programmes are defined as programmes that target ex-combatants as well as the wider war-affected communities and that actively and truly involve these communities in the process of assessment, design and implementation.
By exploring the connections between community security and DDR, it is argued, some of the weaknesses of state-focused DDR could be overcome. First, the end state of community security can be seen as the overall aim of DDR processes; second, community security as a process can be a characteristic of DDR processes with community participation being a crucial element; third, DDR programmes can be connected to community security initiatives such as traditional systems and peace committees; fourth, DDR programmes can be linked with community-based DDR initiatives; and fifth, community security can be a precondition for DDR. Recent developments towards international standards for DDR implementation and coordination should therefore be carefully balanced with flexibility and openness to local input.
The literature and policy studies carried out so far leave a number of interesting and challenging conclusions:
- DDR processes tend to be isolated from wider reconstruction, security sector reform and peacebuilding processes. They lack national ownership and local involvement, fail to accommodate the special needs of vulnerable groups, and do not dedicate enough focus reintegration. These weaknesses emerge because DDR processes pay insufficient attention to community security.
- Human security embodies a shift from security through armament to security through sustainable development. Taking a human security approach to DDR may help addressing shortcomings.
- In practice, community security and DDR are rarely connected. It is seldom questioned how DDR could contribute to longer-term security, and influential handbooks treat community security in a very narrow way.
- Local actors, such as CBOs, NGOs, local government and the private sector, have limited influence on donors and national governments, which limits the possibilities for DDR programmes to reinforce community security arrangements, and vice versa.
The report offers a number of practical recommendations:
- Ensuring better complementarity between community security and centralised DDR will be difficult and will require linking local initiatives to centralised programmes, and adjusting centralised programmes accordingly.
- ‘State’ DDR actors, such as donors and international NGOs, lack knowledge of existing informal structures for security provision. More research and community involvement in the early stages of DDR programming is required.
- The current predominant ‘blueprint approach’ should be abandoned in favour of more flexibility in policy and implementation. This will be difficult as it runs counter to recent developments towards greater convergence around a commonly accepted set of standards and procedures. The important objective of coordinated and swift action therefore needs to be balanced with the objective of community security.
- Although the context in which DDR takes place is complex and beyond the control of DDR programmers, it is of paramount importance for DDR success. More holistic thinking is needed so as to move beyond ad-hoc operations to a more strategic view of how different activities, including DDR, can work together.
- Informal community security structures can sometimes be of an illiberal nature, which places ‘state’ DDR actors before difficult dilemmas when it comes to cooperating with them.
