The “Children and Security Sector Reform in Post-Conflict Peace-Building” report reviews the principles of SSR and transitional justice, while focus is on how to integrate children and youth in these processes. If SSR and transitional justice are structured in ways that reflect the unique needs and rights of children, the report argues that young people can help create and sustain a durable peace.
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This report highlights potential problems with Western-implemented police reform. Simply increasing capacity is unlikely to have the desired effect, and will only reinforce the status quo. However, reforms enacted without an understanding of the police force’s institutional history and complex power relationships are likely to follow the same circuit already traversed by the failed 2002 reforms.
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The seminar and its report provide a clear view of not only the challenges facing women’s Rights in Afghanistan but also, and perhaps more importantly, the efforts and initiatives presently underway to address said challenges. By focusing their initiatives to promote and enhance dialogue on sensitive issues, the efforts of Rights & Democracy and its partners are prime examples of a new path for Afghanistan.
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While reforms are important, they do not necessarily address the need to better streamline the various agencies to encourage interagency cooperation. The question arises, why were warnings ignored or overlooked? In order to avoid another tragic attack, Uganda should recommit to improving intelligence coordination.
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We have seen in other SSR operations around the globe how underdevelopment of a judicial sector frequently leads to a slide towards expediency among security forces, which of course has feedback effects on further underdevelopment of the judiciary. This trajectory must be changed in order not to compromise current security sector improvements.
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With the departure of the EU, there is little optimism that the necessary reforms to the country’s police and armed forces will happen.
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Not ensuring the Abyei referendum process moves forward raises the chances Abyei’s own vote never happens. Further escalation in violence in the region is very possible. And holding the vote without working to build acceptance and trust with the Misseriya will prevent sustained peace. Should there be any future conflict between North and South, whether to dispute boundaries or wealth, Abyei will again be at the crossroads.
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Despite the bleak outlook, there is reason to believe that a shift in mentality from the current to a more holistic SSR program can facilitate progress.
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The Danish International Development Agency’s new how-to report, “Informal Justice Systems” provides a framework for designing and implementing informal justice reform. While informal justice provides an established, locally-owned base for broad justice reform, detailed analysis must be conducted in order to avoid empowering inhumane systems. However, care must be taken to avoid being seen as imposing new norms on informal justice.
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The Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces and the Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defence Academies and Security Studies Institutes hosted a workshop in Geneva, Switzerland, where participants were shown how men, women, and children have different security needs and how taking those different needs into account in the SSR process will produce inclusive security institutions that are capable of providing security and justice to an entire population.
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