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2511. Security Sector Reform Whitehall Policy Seminar - Final Report

Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform
Abstract:
The Security Sector Reform Whitehall Policy Seminar is held each year for practitioners and policymakers to discuss HMG's SSR Strategy and ways in which the strategy should evolve to address current realities. The forum brings together representatives from all Whitehall departments with an interest in security. External guests such as academics, members of non-governmental organizations and local representatives from regions where HMG SSR programmes are ongoing are also invited.
Topic:
Security and Reform
Political Geography:
Africa, Asia, Caribbean, and Southeast Asia

2512. Providing Security for People: Enhancing Security through Police, Justice, and Intelligence Reform in Africa

Author:
Chris Ferguson and Jeffrey O. Iisma
Publication Date:
09-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform
Abstract:
Security Sector Reform has continued to emerge as a powerful organising force among international actors dedicated to conflict prevention and poverty reduction. As the broader strands of the SSR concept are becoming increasingly recognisable and understood it will be important to emphasise that effective SSR implementation requires a balanced approach across the whole security sector.
Topic:
Security, Development, and Peace Studies
Political Geography:
Africa

2513. Networking the Networks: Supporting Regional Peace and Security Agendas in Africa

Author:
Ann M. Fitz-Gerald and Anicia Lala
Publication Date:
07-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform
Abstract:
The Mozambique Security Network Symposium was held in Maputo on 30 June-1 July 2003. The meeting gathered approximately sixty participants from government, regional and sub-regional organisations and civil society. The event was made possible through the support of the UK Government's African Conflict Prevention Pool and was facilitated by the Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform (GFN-SSR), a project funded by the United Kingdom that seeks to unite all actors and agencies in this field of study. Through the generous support of the United Nations Foundation, a number of representatives from Latin American countries also attended the meeting to draw on lessons learned and shared experiences from another southern region.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Security, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Africa, United Kingdom, United Nations, and Latin America

2514. Meeting for Selection of an Interim Steering Committee for the African Network of Networks on Security Matters

Author:
Chris Ferguson and Anicia Lala
Publication Date:
01-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform
Abstract:
In proceeding with the recommendations of the declaration that emerged from the Mozambique Security Network Symposium (SNS) held in July 2003, a meeting to discuss the creation of an African network of networks on security matters took place. This event took place under the aegis of the Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform (GFN-SSR) and African Security Dialogue Research (ASDR) who kindly offered to host it in conjunction with the earlier work shop on Security Sector Governance (SSG) in Africa and the subsequent 3rd Advisory Group Meeting of the GFN-SSR.
Topic:
Security, Development, and International Cooperation
Political Geography:
Africa

2515. The Black Media Entrepreneur and Economic Implications for the 21st Century

Author:
Emmanuel K. Ngwainmbi
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Columbia International Affairs Online
Abstract:
This paper appraises communications as business and examines the impact of new information technology on the productivity of the black entrepreneur (African American (AAs) and African (ABs) mid-scale businesspersons) and provides insights into market conditions in both communities to the mindset of the African entrepreneur and implications for partnership management. Further, it describes the black entrepreneur's access to business information, implications for partnership and a background for strategic planning. Research shows there are potential mutual benefits for African and African American media entrepreneurs, with proper strategic planning and information sharing.
Topic:
Development, Emerging Markets, and Industrial Policy
Political Geography:
Africa

2516. Glocalization, Local Urban Culture and Change in West Africa: Toward Negotiating Socioeconomic Understanding with Foreign Companies and International Organizaations

Author:
Emmanuel K. Ngwainmbi
Publication Date:
03-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Columbia International Affairs Online
Abstract:
The paper revisits the key problematics of conceptualizing culture, the ethnographic relevance of cross cultural communication in business management, and the theoretical and pragmatic differences between glocalization, Euro-American and West African business management ethics and socioeconomic change in NEPAD (The New Partnership for African Development) countries. Further, it examines the power dynamics of the local sub-cultures (manager, employee and local consumer) and the fundamental cultural differences between local and foreign managers and provides the contexts within which such core differences cultivate a hybrid business environment and enhance translocal negotiations. Finally, it discusses the triangular connection between hegemony, ICT and social change and identifies situations in urban W. African communities where local-foreign knowledge and technical resources promote globalization in the region.
Topic:
Development, Globalization, and Government
Political Geography:
Africa and America

2517. Challenges to Security Sector Governance in the Middle East: the Libyan Case

Author:
Hanspeter Mattes
Publication Date:
08-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF)
Abstract:
The U.S.-led Coalition's swift victory over the Taliban regime in October 2001 created a security vacuum across Afghanistan that the international community was unprepared to fill. Winning the peace in Afghanistan has proven to be a much more complex, costly, and protracted endeavour than winning the war, an imposing burden that has severely tested the resolve of the international donor community. With only 11,000-13,000 Coalition troops mandated to eradicate the last remnants of al-Qaeda an the Taliban in the south and a limited NATO presence of 6,000 troops deployed in the capital to insulate the fledgling political process, the onus for maintaining security in the country fell on the Afghan government and its fledgling security forces. After 23 years of civil war the country's security sector was in a state of disarray, its infrastructure destroyed, resources limited, and facing a shortage of human capacity. To bolster Afghanistan's beleaguered security institutions and ensure they conform to international standards, the major donors engaged in the country launched a security sector reform (SSR) process. Security sector transformation rather than reform seems more appropriate to describe the task of creating efficient, effective, and democratically accountable security forces in Afghanistan, for the bulk of the country's formal security apparatus ceased to function over a decade ago. In spite of the massive challenges that face program, it has been portrayed as the primary means to redress Afghanistan's immediate security woes. What by its very nature is a gradual, long-term process has been thrust into the position as short-term panacea.
Topic:
International Relations, Security, Politics, and Governance
Political Geography:
Africa and Libya

2518. HIV/AIDS as a Security Issue in Africa: Lessons from Uganda

Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
HIV/AIDS prevention and conflict prevention should go hand in hand. They are the two blades of the scissors required to cut the strangler's cord choking Africa. Some 2.5 million Africans will die of AIDS in 2004. One in four African countries presently suffers from the effects of armed conflict.
Topic:
Security, Human Welfare, Non-Governmental Organization, Poverty, and War
Political Geography:
Uganda and Africa

2519. Islamism in North Africa II: Egypt's Opportunity

Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Important changes in the outlook of Egyptian Islamic activism in recent years have opened up possibilities for progressive political development, but these have gone unexploited because of the conservatism of the Egyptian government's policies. The absence of serious violence since late 1997 strongly suggests that the strategy of armed struggle (jihad) against the state has not only failed but has effectively been abandoned. At the same time, the ideology of non-violent Islamic activism has evolved and now emphatically embraces democratic principles and elements of a modernist outlook. However, unless the Egyptian government changes its approach, opens up the political field and undertakes serious political reform, the frustration which many Egyptians feel could lead to a recrudescence of violent activism at some stage. The government risks realising too late that it has squandered a vital opportunity and wasted the fruits of its own earlier successes on the security front.
Topic:
Democratization, Politics, Religion, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Africa, North Africa, and Egypt

2520. Islamism in North Africa I: The Legacies of History

Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Islamism, terrorism, reform: the triangle formed by these three concepts and the complex and changeable realities to which they refer is at the centre of political debate in and about North Africa today. The role of Egyptian elements in the leadership of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organisation is well-known, if not necessarily well understood. The involvement of Maghrebis in terrorist networks in Europe -- whether linked to al-Qaeda or not -- has recently been underlined by the suspected involvement of Moroccans in the 11 March 2004 attack in Madrid. Egypt itself has endured years of terrorist violence; few if any countries have suffered as much from terrorism as Algeria has over the last twelve years; and the bombings in Casablanca on 16 May 2003 suggest that Morocco is not immune.
Topic:
Democratization, Politics, Religion, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Algeria, North Africa, Egypt, and Morocco