Center on International Cooperation

Post Conflict Peacebuilding > Security Sector Reform

CIC’s SSR project seeks to assess and strengthen international capacity for security sector reform (SSR). It is supporting SSR policy development by the UN and other actors; assessing the operational capacity of UN SSR programmes in peace operations; and examining the role of non-state actors in providing security in fragile states.

The project provided input to the UN Secretary General’s Report on Securing Peace and Development: the role of the UN in supporting security sector reform. It has also undertaken assessments of SSR capacity in the UN missions in Timor-Leste (September 2008) and in the DR Congo (September 2007). In March 2008, CIC co-organized a presentation of the DCAF-UN INSTRAW-OSCE Gender and SSR toolkit on during the Special Committee on Peacekeeping at the UN. The toolkit provides practical, tangible ways for integrating gender issues into SSR policies and practices.

CIC is undertaking a comparative study, Parliamentary Oversight of the Security Sector in West Africa: Security Sector Reform as Conflict Prevention? The study seeks to gauge the contribution to conflict prevention of efforts to strengthen parliamentary oversight of the security sector and to draw relevant lessons that may help to strengthen ongoing SSR processes at the national and regional level, including engagement with non-state security actors and strengthening regional security architecture.

Lead Researcher: Jake Sherman

Project Staff: Gigja Sorensen , Yoshini Funaki

Funders: Government of Norway

Publications
Title	Source	Author	Date
Survey of the United States Governments arrangements for monitoring and evaluating support to security sector reform	Saferworld	Jake Sherman	March 2009
Strengthening Security Sector Governance in West Africa	CIC	Jake Sherman	March 2009
Liberia: Parliamentary Oversight and Lessons Learned from Internationalized SSR	CIC	Dr. Thomas Jaye	March 2009
Parliamentary Oversight of the Security Sector: Lessons from Ghana	CIC	Kwesi Aning & Ernest Lartey	March 2009
The Afghan National Development Strategy: The Right Plan at the Wrong Time?	Journal of Security Sector Management	Jake Sherman	February 2009
Parliamentary Oversight of the Security Sector in Sierra Leone: Lessons Learned	CIC	Osman Gbla	Forthcoming 2009
UN support to SSR in Timor-Leste: Mission Report	CIC	Yoshino Funaki	Forthcoming 2009

News

Survey of US Security Sector Reform
March 2009

This report by Jake Sherman for Saferworld provides an overview of the US Government's arrangement for monitoring and evaluating the support it provides to security sector reform.

Read A Survey of the US Security Sector Reform

Strengthening Security Sector Governance in West Africa
March 2009

Across West Africa, the absence of effective, democratic governance of the security sector has been a significant casual factor of state fragility or civil war. Jake Sherman, Lead Researcher for CIC ’s Security Sector Reform project, funded by the Royal Government of Norway, undertook a comparative study of legislative oversight of security sector reform (SSR) in West Africa during 2008.

Read Strengthening Security Sector Governance in West Africa

The Afghan National Development Strategy: The Right Plan at the Wrong Time?
February 2009

In 2005 the Government of Afghanistan initiated a process leading to the formulation of the Afghanistan National Development Strategy(ANDS). Jake Sherman argues that ANDS is hindered by flawed assumptions about the nature of Afghanistan's political, economic and social realities.

Read The Afghan National Development Strategy:The Right Plan at the Wrong Time?

Right-Financing Security Sector Reform
January 2008

This paper, part of CIC and PERI's Public Finance in Post-Conflict Environments policy series, argues for adopting a “right-financing” approach to SSR as a way to balance immediate security needs with longer-term goals of fiscal sustainability.

Dilemmas and Challenges in Afghanistan's Security Sector Reform
December 2007

In this case study from SSRBulletin, Jake Sherman discusses the continuing challenges to SSR efforts in Afghanistan.