Good Practices in Addressing Human Security through National Human Development Reports

Abstract

In 2012, for the first time, the United Nations General Assembly agreed on a common understanding of the essence of the human security concept. This is a major advance in the mainstreaming of the concept, proof of the increasing recognition it has gained in the international community. The agreement also brings implicitly the need for progress in clarification and consolidation of the relevant alternatives for operationalization of the concept. One of those alternatives is human security reporting, as illustrated especially by the many assessments prepared in the UNDP series of global, regional, national and sub-national Human Development Reports. Each of them offers a window into the intricacies of generating insights through the contextualization of human security principles while engaging different actors into the conversation. An important step in the clarification and consolidation was the work of Jolly and Basu Ray (2006, 2007) who reviewed a large set of UNDP-sponsored studies and concluded that they confirmed the approach’s ability to add value, through situationally-responsive identification and exploration of what are relevant threats. The present study expands the work of Jolly and Basu Ray, based on a systematic and detailed review of National and Regional Human Development Reports (HDRs) on human security. The sample includes sixteen Regional and National Human Development Reports, and one additional report, and the study is informed also by review of some still emergent reports. The research was funded by the UN Trust Fund for Human Security and produced under the auspices of UNDP. Given the complexity of human security, the reports are initially reviewed using a set of basic questions on security, so that differences in focus and approach became clear: Whose security? Security of what? Security from what threats? Who are the security providers? What are the means for security? How much security? We then propose a classification of reports, which allows deeper analysis by comparing groups of reports that are similar, We identify four main types:1. Comprehensive mapping reports. These reports try to cover all major threats to all priority values, with reference to all relevant means.2. State-building reports. These reports see state collapse/failure as the greatest threat, indirectly, to human security, and so focus on this centrally important means, building a state.3. ‘Citizen security’ reports. These reports focus on a subset of values which are civil rights concerning the daily lives of ‘citizens’, notably the values of physical safety and freedom from unlawful dispossession.4. Other special-focus reports, centred on an identified lead challenge. These reports focus on some other single threatened value, or type of threat: e.g. food insecurity. For simplicity we call them ‘Challenge-driven’, though the other types of report also respond to challenges. Each group of reports is then reviewed in terms of: (1) Conceptual framework, (2) Approaches to measurement, (3) Policy relevance and (4) Integration with human development analysis. This generates a large number of interesting findings, and the paper will present a summary that updates, extends and deepens the analysis in the comparable summary paper by Jolly/ Basu Ray (2007). Some of the general findings include: Human security analysis is not only of use for addressing the situation of fragile states. Security, in the broader sense ingrained in the human security concept, is a common concern for all societies, although highly relative to the context. The reports reviewed show that the human security approach is flexible enough to respond to differences, while retaining analytical relevance and advocacy power.The first human security report on a country/region can sensibly include in its analysis issues already conventionally recognized as “security” matters, in order to show by comparison of the characteristics/consequences of different issues the value added by broadening the meaning of security beyond those conventional topics.Reporting on human security gains greatly by exploring both the objective and subjective sides of threats (and of the values threatened) and then systematically comparing them. There are powerful qualitative and quantitative methodologies for this, which have been very effectively used in several Reports.The analysis results in a more informed picture of the options for reporting on human security, the ways in which UNDP Country Offices have employed these options, and factors that newcomers should bear in mind when conceiving reports on human security.