GPPi analyzes UN security sector reform efforts and opportunities for German support

On 16 October 2012, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation published a policy brief by GPPi Fellow Philipp Rotmann that makes a case for greater German engagement in UN assistance to security sector reform (SSR) in fragile states. The paper was published in German in the series FES-Perspektiven. Its original title is Sicherheitssektorreform und die Vereinten Nationen: Erfahrungen und Chancen für deutsches Engagement.

The paper argues that the construction (or reconstruction) of security institutions based on the principles of effectiveness and accountability remains ill understood and current SSR assistance programs are often ineffective. At the same time, the World Bank’s 2011 World Development Report underlined that the performance of justice and security institutions is crucial for conflict prevention and peace building. If providers and donors of SSR learned from the available experience, security sector reform assistance could therefore become a crucial instrument of peace building.

Despite the UN’s comparatively low profile in the international SSR debate, the UN Development Programme as well as the peacekeeping system have accumulated considerable operational experience through their support for democratic transitions and comprehensive peacebuilding missions for more than two decades. This wealth of experience is only waiting to be systematically reviewed and evaluated.

Germany would be well placed to contribute to a pragmatic SSR agenda based on those lessons, provided the Bundestag and the federal government decide to make SSR a cornerstone of their engagement in international peacebuilding policy and practice. The paper concludes with three specific proposals: (1) build capacity at home to catch up with the international debate that German institutions have largely ignored so far, (2) link German and international learning processes based on operational experiences in Bosnia, Kosovo or Afghanistan, and (3) use the ​“Group of Friends of Security Sector Reform” at the UN to generate new momentum for pragmatic political engagement with SSR processes.