Human security: a framework for assessment in conflict and transition

In this paper the authors revisit the idea of human security, arguing that a narrow focus on material resources has prevented analysts from identifying the true sources of vulnerability or resilience in a population, and set out a conceptual approach which pays due attention to the psychological and social bases of community stability. Findings suggest that complex situations are best explained by a composite model of human security.

For a society to be resilient, the authors find that it need not necessarily be rich. Instead, what is required is a core bundle of basic resources - material, psychological and social - which together ensure a minimum level of survival. The paper is ordered in sections following the introduction, beginning with a review of approaches to human security and their common elements; drawing on these observations to develop a new model of human security; application to select cases from Africa; and finally in the annex of the paper the authors discuss various ways this new framework can be used to guide humanitarian policy in the field.