SECURITY SECTOR REFORM

In 2001, the Civil-Military Relations Working Group changed its name to the Security Sector Reform Working Group (SSR WG) to better reflect its wider objectives, as the efficient management of SSR processes gained greater importance. In approaching this topic, the working group concentrates on security sector reform and governance both as a whole and taking into account regional differences.

The activities of the Working Group have spanned such diverse issues as combating terrorism, defence institution building, public security management in post-conflict societies, but also SSR in Eastern Europe, the Southern Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Western Balkans. The SSR WG began expanding its perspective by including human security and gender perspectives in 2010 with a workshop on gender and security sector reform, as a direct follow-up to the speech of the Slovenian Defence Minister at the PfPC annual conference in Munich in 2009.

The objectives of the SSR WG are to enhance the process of security sector reform and good governance through cooperation in joint research, outreach, and expert training initiatives; to encourage collaboration among international information networks to forward these objectives; and to enhance the exchange of ideas, insights, expertise, knowledge and best practices of security sector reform processes between consolidating and consolidated democracies in the Euro-Atlantic area. The working group and its objectives are widely acknowledged. It is supported by the Swiss Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport, and managed by the Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance.