HC Deb 14 April 1999 vol 329 cc236-7W
28. Mr. Dismore

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what steps her Department is taking to support security sector reform in developing countries. [79131]

Clare Short

On 9 March, I announced my Department's new plans to help developing countries reform their security sectors. The security sector consists of those who are responsible, or should be responsible, for protecting the state and communities within the state. Included in the security sector are military, paramilitary and intelligence services, as well as those civilian structures responsible for oversight and control of the security forces.

All countries have legitimate security needs. But a major obstacle to making progress in development and reducing poverty in many countries is the existence of bloated, secretive, repressive, undemocratic and badly structured security sectors. Reforming the security sector is therefore a priority. Eliminating violence and reducing insecurity is a precondition for development.

I outlined seven priority areas for future action which focus on the issues of good governance, conflict prevention, human rights promotion and post-conflict reconstruction. The priority areas are: to integrate a security sector reform perspective into country aid programmes, and into the thinking of other donors and multilateral development institutions to secure partnership programmes with the United Nations and with regional organisations who wish to co-operate with us on conflict and security issues to expand the provision of human rights training for members of the military to work internationally to reduce the number of children involved in wars to reduce the proliferation of small arms and light weapons to discourage excessive and inappropriate military expenditure to help to build up the peacekeeping and peace support capacity of developing countries.

Within these priority areas, we plan to provide assistance to strengthen the democratic accountability and transparency of the security sector and facilitate the transition to peace; and second, to strengthen capacities of the uniformed security services, for example through training in conflict prevention and reduction. In doing this, we will work in co-operation with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Ministry of Defence, but it is essential that authorities in developing countries both want our help and are committed to strengthening their effective control over their security sectors.

A copy of my speech and of our "Policy Statement on Poverty and the Security Sector" is available in the Library of the House.