Empowerment and Protection - Stories of Human Security Oct. 2014 | Page 120

violence. Male and female gender experts’
experience in navigating diverse perspectives can be
important resources and models for managing the
subjectivity of human security.
Women’s rights advocates argue that women’s
participation is not only important for a truly
inclusive human security, but that human security,
broadly speaking, is dependent upon women’s
security and empowerment. Research suggests
that women’s security and equality supports
broad economic development, improves health
for children, and is correlated with lower levels
of state violence. The participation of women
in politics, economic life, security forces, and
peacekeeping supports the economic security
of families, the effectiveness of police forces,
lowers corruption, and is correlated with lower
rates of state aggression.8 Women’s security can
be strengthened by a focus on human security,
and can be used as an indicator to assess overall
human security.

Gender experts’ experience
in navigating diverse
perspectives can be important
resources and models for
managing the subjectivity of
human security accounts.
Scaling up human security
At a coordinating level, conflict prevention
efforts can benefit from using the human security
framework. Human security’s broad focus can
enable the mobilisation and integration of diverse
sectors – government, health, food, economic
development, natural resource management, etc. –
that can work together to analyse root causes of
conflict, identify overlapping goals and interests
of stakeholders, and design multidimensional
intervention strategies and public policies. By
taking into account the diverse vulnerabilities and
capacities of individuals and their communities,
human security offers a deep and wide set of
120 stories of Human Security | the Citizen-State Relationship

process, strengthen civil society, and highlight the
interdependency of transnational threats and local
security.13

analytical frames and intervention points with
which to address root causes of conflict.
A key challenge for human security lies in ‘scaling
up’ the types of intervention approaches presented
in the preceding chapters. Human security is context
dependent, which complicates efforts to mainstream
it as a large scale approach. The example of the
New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States (the
New Deal) provides a possibility of a global human
security approach that remains context-driven by
focusing on inclusive processes and building the
relationship between the state and society.

In spite of the challenges it faces, the New Deal
is an example of the kind of unifying framework
that a human security approach could provide in
designing integrated approaches to development
and peace. It has catalysed the formation of broad
civil society coalitions spanning human rights,
natural resources management, women’s rights,
poverty reduction and others. It has facilitated new
collaboration by actors across the development
and governance spectrum. The New Deal creates
a platform for government, civil society, and
donors to identify root causes of conflict and
strategies for addressing them. As such, it is one
example of the way human security can work
at the global level to support conflict resolution
efforts. In global conversations on the post-2015
development framework that will replace the
Millennium Development Goals, many civil society
organisations are advocating for the inclusion of
peacebuilding and statebuilding goals like those
found in the New Deal.14

The New Deal addresses the impact of prolonged
conflict on development. Initiated by the g7+, a
self-identified group of 19 conflict-affected, socalled ‘fragile’ states, the New Deal establishes
new partnerships between donor states, fragile
states, and civil society to create “country-led and
country-owned transitions out of fragility.”9 While
not explicitly endorsing a human security approach,
the process embodies human security principles in
several ways.10 The New Deal agreement commits
signatories to ‘inclusive and participatory political
dialogue’ and identifies civil society actors as primary
partners in the process.11 It states that ‘people’s
security’ is one of five primary peacebuilding and
statebuilding goals (PSGs) that it seeks to achieve. It
recognises that, “Cons