‘No security without development and no development without security’. To what extent do you agree with this statement?
Development signifies progress in human well-being, the UNDP’s Human Development Report defined development as the means by which people’s choices are enlarged in a way which enables them to lead longer, healthier and fuller lives. The statement above suggests therefore that a lack of security will impede an individual within a country from improving their quality of life. However it also implies that if a population’s ability to develop is reduced or removed it will not be able to create such securities. Either way the suggestion is that countries can be trapped in a cycle where by neither security or development are forthcoming and therefore poverty remains.
The definition of security in this sense encompasses more than just safety from violence and conflict; it includes the absence of severe threats of an economic or political kind: ‘Job security, income security, health security, environmental security, food security. Many equate the presence of security with the ability to be willing and able to invest in the future.
Human security in its broadest sense embraces far more than the absence of violent conflict. It encompasses human rights, good governance, access to education and health care, and ensuring that each individual has opportunities and choices to fulfil his or her own potential…Freedom from want, freedom from fear and the freedom of the future generations to inherit a healthy natural environment – these are the interrelated building blocks of human, and therefore national security (CHS 2003, p. 4).
Collier (2008) has stated that he feels the most important cause of poverty is conflict. A major part of this cause of poverty is the loss of security experienced by those in conflict zones. He states that 73% of what he terms the “Bottom Billion” (poorest billion people in the world) have experienced or are experiencing...