Food Security alone is not the answer.

Today, food security is the new buzz word in the development world and Uganda’s
political corridors. On the upside, this signifies a new approach from development
agencies and the Uganda government alike, to matters of security. Unfortunately, all the
noble efforts to achieve food security in isolation from the other basic components of
Human Security (health, economic, individual, community, environmental and political
security) are set to fail or in the least, be counterproductive if pursued outside the
broader scope of the Human Security paradigm. Presently, food security is being
touted as the panacea to the decades of conflict and poverty that have plagued northern
Ugandan (see New vision Monday 26th 2009). The government of Uganda and many
development agencies are now bent double trying to ensure food security in a region
plagued by conflict, poverty and disease hoping that it will end violent conflict in Uganda
once and for all, and also reconcile past misunderstandings in one big swoop. However,
food security in isolation, cannot guarantee security and without a holistic
implementation of Human Security. Still, choosing food security means that
government and development agencies have opened their eyes to the broad nature of
security issues in the 21st century and Human Security can only be achieved by
holistically applying all the different components of the paradigm.

However, choosing the theme of food security is monumental primarily because it

shows a genuine commitment from Uganda’s leaders to end their people’s woes, and
secondly, because it appears to constitute a gradual shift from the traditional military
dominant conceptions of security widely held in Uganda. “Security” in Uganda is
traditionally defined in terms of “national security,” a concept with roots stemming from
the Treaty of Westphalia and Realist ideology, where states are the primary actors, and
their survival is the main pre-occupation. At the end of colonialism Uganda inherited this
Westphalian-model state which views security purely in terms of protecting national
sovereignty and territorial integrity, and treated these principles as it’s most fundamental
and legitimate concerns. Consequently, the notion of “security” has had noxious
consequences for Uganda. In part, this is a result of the legacy of colonial
administrations, which tended to view security in the very narrow sense of
“establishment and maintenance of colonial hegemony”, causing extraordinary coercion
and violence, directed against subject populations. This notion that the regime, and not
its subjects, was the appropriate referent object survived the transition into independent
Uganda. Here, it combined with the equally unfortunate legacy of the Westphalian state
system that did not accord well with political and economic realities or with the true
nature of security threats. Consequently, this encouraged a “military-dominant
conception of security” that held the principal challenge to security to be posed by the
military forces of other states. This justified the acquisition and maintenance of large
military establishments, often without much threat analysis or reference to other
pressing needs of the state.
So what is Human Security? The 1994 human development reports definition of Human
Security equates security with people rather than territories and with development rather
than arms. However, the genealogy of the idea can be traced back to growing
dissatisfaction with prevailing notions of development and security in the 1960’s, 1970’s
and 1980’s. Economics undoubtedly led the way with its critiques of the dominant
models of economic development starting in the 1960’s. In the mid 1970’s the ‘World
Order Models Project’ launched an ambitious effort to envision and construct a more
stable and just world order, and as a part of this endeavor drew attention to the problem
of individual well being and safety.”

Broadly however, Human Security is achieved when and where individuals and
communities have the options necessary to end, mitigate, or adapt to threats to their
human, environmental and social rights; and have the capacity and freedom to exercise
these options and actively participate in attaining these options. Human Security
applies most at the level of the individual citizen. It amounts to human well being; not
only protection from harm and injury but access to other basic requisites that are the
due of every person on earth. While material sufficiency lies at the core of Human
Security, the concept encompasses non material dimensions to form a qualitative
whole…..the quantitative aspect refers to material sufficiency that the pursuit of Human
Security must have at its core. The qualitative aspect of Human Security is about the
achievement of human dignity, which incorporates personal autonomy, control over
one’s life and unhindered participation in the life of the community. By focusing on
people, Human Security renders meaningless the consideration of traditional territorial
boundaries; even the nation and the state cannot be accorded a higher priority.

The Basic Ideals of Human Security

How safe and free are we as individuals? That is the central question behind the idea of
Human Security. It’s not a new question, but it is one that has stirred up debate between
policy makers and thinkers. After the Cold War, governments’ NGOs’, International
Organizations, and ordinary citizens are now in position to explore that question as
never before and to act to enlarge the envelope of safety and freedom. The major work
legitimizing the importance of current Human Security studies, the UNDP’s Human
Development Report 1994, set forth “seven main categories” of “threats to Human
Security.” These tenets are described briefly below.

Economic Security
The measure of an individual’s or a group’s economic security is based on a twofold
claim that factors in a person’s financial resources and whether the possibility exists to
use these resources to satisfy basic needs. In order for economic security to be
guaranteed, either “an assured basic income – usually from productive and
remunerative work” must exist for individuals or “in the last resort from some publicly
financed safety net.” Threats to this form of security derive from such wide-ranging
causes as widespread corruption, environmental disasters, a state’s economic policies,
or even the faceless danger of globalization. Examples of threats to economic security
in the region are numerous. One such instance came in the 1990’s, when many citizens
of a deeply indebted Kenya became economically insecure after their government
allowed itself to be fleeced by corrupt government officials of billions of dollars worth of
Kenyan tax payers money in what came to be known as the Goldenberg scandal. While
Kenya’s overvalued shilling allowed the newly rich (corrupt Government officials and
individuals) to hoard profits abroad, members of the working and middle classes
suffered. No adequate social safety net existed to aid the unemployed, and workers
often received no earnings as their employers slipped into arrears, causing massive
economic insecurity. This manifested itself in the institutionalized corruption and social
insecurity that characterized Kenyan life in the 1990’s and in many ways led to the
discontent that triggered post election violence in 2007. This case conveys how poor
government policy, threats stemming from globalization, and economic inequality can
endanger a state’s and invariably a regions security.

Food and Health Security

Food security means more than food availability as it touches on a wide range of
aspects. The UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) for instance, articulates
food security from a multi-dimensional angle, where food security, is defined as
inclusive of adequacy in food supply (both quality and quantity), stable and sustainable
food supply and accessibility to available food for all and at all times. This implies that
all people regardless of sex, age, class and race/ethnicity are at all times guaranteed
physical, economic and psychological access to quality food to meet both physiological
and nutrient requirements. Contributing to the FAO definition, the World Bank defines
food security as, “access to enough food by all people at all times for ensuring a healthy
and active lifestyle.” “The Rural Food Security Research and Policy Group (KIHACHA)
based at the University of Dar es Salaam (2002) added a human rights element to the
definition of food security. Its supporting argument is based on the fact that food security
is a matter of human life.” Food and health security require not only that resources exist,
but also that they be made available to those in need. In the case of the Bengal famine
of 1943, the availability of food did not translate into food security. Over 2 million people
died in one year on the Indian sub-continent from starvation and malnutrition despite
increases in food production levels in that area. The British colonial government did
nothing to prevent hoarding by producers or the massive inflation that raised food prices
out of the range of the poverty stricken population.

Environmental Security
The degradation of the environment is the security threat that best represents the theme
of interconnectedness in Human Security theory. Threats such as natural disasters and
pollution do not respect state borders. One such potential threat is climate change. The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates global temperatures will
increase by as much as 5.8°C from the period of 1990 to 2100. The IPCC predicts such
increases in temperature could result in global problems including floods, droughts,
“altered food productivity, and the likely disturbance of complex ecological systems like
tropical forests.” More easily avoidable threats, such as the “giant Soviet Mayak
plutonium plant that dumped radioactive waste in a nearby river … affecting more than
450,000 people with radiation,” also fall into this category. These examples show the
massive scale and destructive capabilities of security threats neglected by realist
thought due to the lack of military causation.

Personal and Community Security

“Personal security refers to the protection of individuals from physical violence. Threats
include: domestic violence and other criminal activity, torture or detention by one’s own
state, and military invasion by a foreign state. Community security is focused on the
protection of groups threatened by other, more powerful entities.” Perhaps the most
important threat to these two issue areas of Human Security is the crime of genocide.
When an ensemble of individuals or a state systematically attempts to exterminate an
entire group, borders are not necessarily crossed and sovereignty is not necessarily
challenged. This would imply traditional security studies do not view genocide as a
security threat. Such a position seems absurd when one considers descriptions of
almost a million Rwandans macheted to death and the devastating accounts of the Nazi
concentration camps.

Political Security
The concept of political security is based on democratic government and the protection
of human rights. This issue is perhaps the strongest tenet of Human Security theory and
separates it most clearly from the traditional model. Human rights violations are often
perpetrated by states upon their own citizens with the goal of protecting “national
security.” However, such policy can often lead to a loss of legitimacy of the government
and the eventual breakdown of the entire state. This is especially the case where the
military is used as a tool of repression. A strong military does not necessarily provide
security to either states or individuals.
Recommendations for a broader approach to security

Putting Human Security at the top of the agenda:

A broad initiative must be mobilized to place Human Security concerns at the top of
Uganda’s security agenda. Human Security issues need to be mainstreamed into local
and international development efforts to broaden the understanding of threats to
security and stability, to include issues such as environmental degradation, HIV/AIDS as
well as serious human rights violations. This scope must further be broadened to
include an array of other Human Security concerns, so that mechanisms can be
developed to respond to them when they arise. This requires emphasizing the security
of people parallel with military security. It also calls for the inclusion of normative
frameworks into national policy and calls for new programmes to address the specific
insecurities of different communities and groups.

Putting Human Security at the top of the security agenda would change the way that
local, national and regional actors pursue their missions by first of all calling for the
integration of development concerns with the activities of human rights and
humanitarian organizations. It would also call for a renewed emphasis on the millennium
development goals by addressing conflict and human rights violations; finally, it would
also call for the enhancement of official development assistance to accommodate these
new perspectives.

It is also recommended that Uganda enter into meaningful partnerships with developed
countries that support the Human Security agenda. The governments of Norway, Japan
and Canada have explicitly expressed their willingness to promote the Human Security
agenda, and indeed support Human Security drives. Indeed, the fact that all three
countries are already involved one way or the other in development projects within
Uganda makes it easier for national stakeholders to find an entry point into negotiations
on Human Security concerns.

Promoting and empowering people and communities to promote a culture of Human

Security:
It is recommended that the government of Uganda promote the protection of Human
Security with the same force of its responses to the many threats to state security
because Human Security aims to do just that; to build protective infrastructure that
shields people’s lives from critical and pervasive threats. That infrastructure includes
working institutions at all levels of society for example the police, environmental
regulatory bodies, basic health care projects, education systems, diplomatic missions
and Early warning systems for crises and conflict. This will lead to the ability of people
to be able to act on their own behalf or on the behalf of others, which is central to the
realization of Human Security.
Empowered people tend to demand respect for their rights and dignity when they are
violated. They also tend to create new opportunities for work and to address their
problems locally. Empowered people also mobilize action and resources for the security
of others. However, a sensitisation of Uganda’s people on the concept is required
before implementation to increase awareness of Human Security. To achieve this, the
government also has to be empowered with more institutional structures for mobilizing
local and regional resources and technologies to more effectively monitor Human
Security in the region

Deepening democratic principles and practices:

Uganda should garner resources for the construction of viable foundations for
democratisation and the respect for the rule of law, as these are central pillars to the
realization of Human Security and its propagation in the region. To do this, it is
recommended that an advisory body on matters of Human Security, democratisation
and human rights be created to monitor the progress of these principles.

A democratic political order, buttressed by physical safety and economic growth, would
help protect and empower Uganda’s people. Respecting democratic principles is a
necessary step towards attaining Human Security and development because it enables
people to participate in matters of their governance, and to make their voices heard.
Deepening democratic principles and practices at all levels, would mitigate the many
threats to National Human Security.

However, this requires building strong institutions as well as emphasizing the rule of law
and the safety of people.

Preventing conflict and promoting Human Security and development in Uganda:

Preventing conflict ought to be put high on Uganda’s security agenda. Its concentration
on economic cooperation tends to leave out matters of regional security from regional
integration discourses. More emphasis should also be placed on education, poverty
reduction and equity. To achieve this, the prevention of regional conflict should be re-
emphasized.

Recognizing that protecting people should be the sole responsibility of all communities
alike is an important step. However, Uganda faces the challenge of translating this
common responsibility into concrete policies and actions. By strengthening the role of
civil society organizations, uganda would guarantee strong communities, which in turn
would prevent conflict by more effectively articulating group goals, monitoring abuses of
power, and proposing effective solutions to grievances.

Development advances freedom by enhancing people’s capabilities and choices

enabling them to actively participate in all spheres of life. It was also found that the
freedoms people enjoy, also depended on social, economic and political arrangements.
It is therefore recommended that by promoting the basic economic security of people
and communities through poverty reduction campaigns and raising the standards of
living by making people more resilient to political, economic and financial downturns
would have a substantial impact on security in Uganda.

It is again emphasized here, that to achieve this effectively, the East African Community
needs a stronger mandate in matters of regional security and democratization. The
experience of countries in the developed world shows that the process of integration for
economic purposes can also serve as the basis for the consolidation of peace and
security. Effective regional integration has a major role to play in helping the region
address these and other security concerns that would normally be left out of the
traditional security debate. The formation of the East African Federation would be a
milestone for the region and would help increase focus on broader security concerns in
the region. By attracting FDI, besides bringing more foreign exchange to the regions
coffers, would enable domestic producers to build up their capacities and consequently
stimulate regional economic growth, which would in turn guarantee economic security
for millions in the region.

Conclusion
Conclusively, the wide usage of the Human Security model to cover many issue areas
may be construed as all encompassing, which can become problematic. While
previously neglected threats gain greater attention in this dynamic, the vast scope of the
definition creates a blurry line between that which should be a security concern for
policy makers and that which should not. Critics of the model justly raise the question as
to whether any threat of any kind falls outside of the category of “threats to Human
Security.” This is truly an area of concern because universal application could result in a
total loss of meaning. However, it is impossible to deny the fact that many of the threats
discussed above have the potential to be extremely devastating to a group’s, an
individual’s, or even a state’s security. It is also important to note that adherents to the
concept of national security generally ignore these dangers. The general principles of
Human Security contained in this paper can be used to help solve problems of
application.

 Threats to security are not limited to those posed by the military of foreign states.
 Human Security is not a zero-sum game because all people on this planet are
fundamentally interconnected.
 Human Security focuses on people instead of states.

This explanation of the term can be used as a criterion for forward-thinking states and
international organizations to measure the true security of human beings. From this
point, governing bodies can begin to prioritize threats and to formulate policy to counter
the most dangerous and elusive threats to regional and Human Security. States must
undertake this same basic process when assessing threats under the traditional
national security model. Both models require a process of analysis, assumption and
prioritization. However, highest priority cannot and should not always be given to the
possible threats presented by the military capabilities of other states. In the case of
Human Security, the state is less of a priority and therefore more likely to be effective in
counteracting threats to individuals and groups. This enhanced role may serve to
protect a state’s “national security” from a threat that would probably be neglected under
a traditional security paradigm. evidently, the present approach to understand human
insecurity and inherently the causes of human insecurity in Uganda is set to be
counterproductive as well fed people start to demand more of their other inherent rights
to education and a cleaner environment, access to quality healthcare and protection
from economic shocks.