Topic 6: Personal security
Security strategies
van Brabant, in his opening text of Section 3, identified three broad security approaches that shape an organisation’s security management strategy and they are summarised below:
- An acceptance approach which attempts to reduce or remove threats by increasing the acceptance (the political and social consent) of an agency’s presence and its work in a particular context.
- A protection approach which uses protective devices and procedures to reduce one’s vulnerability to the threat, but does not affect the threat itself. In security terms this is called hardening the target.
- A deterrence approach which aims to deter a threat with a counter-threat. It ranges from legal, economic or political sanctions (not necessarily by aid agencies) to the threat or use of force.
While the original publication made use of the so-called ‘Security Triangle’ the efficacy of this has been questioned by some practitioners. However a version of this is presented here in Figure 6.4, as it is a useful diagrammatic representation of these three broad security strategies.
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One of the challenges for individuals, as well as the agencies they work for, is to have a good understanding of the background context of the situation they are working in, particularly when this might be rapidly changing. This Activity requires you to research and develop a reasonable understanding of the background context of working for either a UN operational agency, or for an international NGO, in support of refugees or internally displaced people working in areas affected by a current conflict. Since Activity 1.2 you have been following three complex emergencies. Use the resources below to locate current information relevant to your three events. To your chart developed in Activity 1.2 and Activity 3.1 now add the implications of these current events to the security management strategy which the humanitarian agencies working in the field may need to adopt to maximise the safety of its national and international staff as they carry out their mandated work. Write less than 250 words for each country/event. The following is a useful selection of places to look for updates and information:
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