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Towards a Whole-of-Government Approach to Security System Reform
April 9, 2008. On April 9-10 of this year, the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, together with the OECD (CPDC network) and with support from NATO, will organise an international conference on Whole of Government Approaches to Security System Reform. Clingendael's Conflict Research Unit has written a background paper for this conference, entitled Towards a Whole-of-Government Approach to Security System Reform. Supporting Security System Reform (SSR) in partner countries is at heart a highly political, complex change process. As there is no such thing as a universal SSR process, every SSR programme needs a different sequencing and a different set of actors, coming from different departments and agencies, both from within and outside a donor government. This necessitates a coordinated and integrated approach, i.e. a Whole-of-Government Approach (WGA). Such a WGA requires a clearly defined common policy on SSR, a dedicated interdepartmental WGA structure and adequate (flexible) human and financial resources, as pointed out by authors Louise Anten, Mariska van Beijnum, Marloes Claassens and Evert Kets. Download paper (PDF)