How have National Human Development Reports (NHDRs) incorporated issues of human security into their socio-economic analyses of countries emerging from conflict or facing insecurity? What possibilities exist for a people-centred security framework to contribute to policy formulation in the future? This paper from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) reviews the history of the human security approach and surveys 13 NHDRs to evaluate the challenges and opportunities presented by this perspective. It argues that studies of human security needs to have significant constructive policy implications, and that NHDRs’ methodologies should be developed to increase their impact.
Taking a more people-centred approach (rather than the traditional emphasis on state security), the human security framework focuses on threats to individuals’ socio-economic and political conditions, their access to food and health and their environmental, communal and personal safety. Since UNDP’s 1994 Human Development Report, which defined these seven areas of human security, many NHDRs have used this framework in their analysis of human development.
Some commentators criticise the human security methodology for creating an over-broad concept, which complicates the international response to separate issues and risks involving the military in non-military problems. However, many believe that the interrelated, multidimensional nature of post-Cold War security threats requires the co-ordinated response offered by the human security approach, which should not be distorted by military agendas.
Scrutiny of the 13 NHDRs revealed some shared areas of analysis and conclusions:
- The NHDRs’ common emphasis on the seven human security areas may have raised awareness nationally, but, with some notable exceptions, contributed few new developmental insights at the international level.
- Most NHDRs’ did not undertake special statistical surveys, but the Latvian NHDR’s survey which ranked public perception of security threats could inform policy decisions by suggesting priorities in resource allocation.
- Few NHDRs made human security projections or analysed trade-offs between sectors in security policy. The Timor-Leste and Sierra Leone reports were an exception, but these were prepared at a time when international engagement in these countries was high.
- Three NHDRs provided innovative contributions to the human security concept. The Latvian NHDR separated objective and subjective ideas of security; the Bangladeshi NHDR explored the legal framework for human security; and the Macedonian NHDR analysed the human security implications of the transition to a market economy.
- The Afghanistan NHDR was exemplary. It investigated several human security viewpoints: international versus domestic perceptions of security; the psychological impact of insecurity; the implications on security of major migration; and the need for combining a centralisation of authority with increased public participation.
The NHDRs show that the human security framework is an operational approach to people-centred security which can highlight priorities and produce recommendations for national and international policy. Future NHDRs should modify their methodology by:
- Including surveys of public opinion on human security, which rank different threats.
- Incorporating cost-benefit analyses which explore policy trade-offs between addressing various security threats.
- Focusing on country-specific dimensions of insecurity, especially gender insecurities.
- Combining human security and human development analyses, as well as human security projections.
- Monitoring previous NHDRs’ impact on policy.
- Extending the human security framework to other countries’ NHDRs.
