A human security approach to peacekeeping in Africa

One of the transformations in approach and thinking about peace and \nsecurity at the end of the Cold War is the emergence of the human \nsecurity paradigm. It argues for a focus on the individual as the \nreferent point for security rather than the state. Proponents of human \nsecurity offer this alternative perspective to national security, which \nplaces the state at the core of security considerations. A peoplecentred \nand multi-disciplinary understanding of security, they argue, \noffers a more effective response to global vulnerabilities and insecurities. \nAlthough writings and publications arguing for this wider \napproach to security predate it, the 1994 Human Development Report \n(HDR) published for the first time (and since then almost every year) \nby the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) became a \nlandmark publication on Human Security. Invariably, many observers \nand analysts alike have come to see the HDR of 1994 as a defining \nmoment for a shift in perspectives on security.