In September 2010, CIGI and the North-South Institute hosted a conference entitled, “At the Margins of SSR: Gender and Informal Justice,” which aimed to increase awareness of gender and informal justice, two areas of security sector reform (SSR) that have often been overlooked. The morning session examined southern women’s experiences with police reform, and the 
SSR Blog
Monthly Archive
March | 2011
Conference Report: At the Margins of SSR: Gender and Informal Justice
By: Geoff Burt | Wednesday, March 30th, 2011“African Women on the Thin Blue Line.” New NSI book discusses gender and police reform
By: Geoff Burt | Tuesday, March 29th, 2011The North-South Institute has recently published a book edited by Jennifer Salahub entitled “African Women on the Thin Blue Line,” which details the experiences of gender-sensitive police reform in Liberia and Southern Sudan. The book is part of a multi-year research project that carried out focus groups and interviews with female police officers, civil society
CIGI’s first SSR Issue Paper discusses SSR in Haiti one year after the earthquake
By: Geoff Burt | Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011The SSR Resource Centre is pleased to announce the launch of the SSR Issue Papers. The first paper, entitled “Security Sector Reform in Haiti: One Year After the Earthquake,” is written by Isabelle Fortin, an independent researcher in the field of security and justice system reform, specializing in community violence, gender-based violence and public security
ISA Convention: Rethinking Conventional Wisdom on Failed States
By: Geoff Burt | Monday, March 21st, 2011One of my lasting impressions from the ISA Convention in Montreal last week is that the international community needs to rethink the post 9/11 assumption that failed states should be viewed through a security rather than a humanitarian lens. There is a remarkable degree of consensus among SSR donor states’ national security strategies that failed
ISA Convention: “The Role of Domestic Police in Counterinsurgency Operations”
By: Geoff Burt | Friday, March 18th, 2011One of yesterday’s panels discussed the role of domestic police in counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in Afghanistan, the Philippines (during the Hukbalahap Rebellion from 1946-54) and Iraq. The three case studies showed that a focus on building bottom up capacity by training large numbers of new police officers while neglecting the reform of the ministries and
ISA Convention: “The Monopoly of Force: The Nexus between Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) and Security Sector Reform (SSR)”
By: Geoff Burt | Wednesday, March 16th, 2011One of the ISA Convention’s opening panels brought together a group of experts from a variety of backgrounds to discuss the linkages between DDR and SSR and challenge the conventional thinking that they are two distinct, sequential processes. Many of the panelists also contributed to a forthcoming book by the same name which, judging by
Ottawa panel discusses the development of second generation SSR model
By: Geoff Burt | Wednesday, March 9th, 2011On March 3, the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) and the North-South Institute (NSI) hosted a panel discussion on the findings of CIGI’s first eBook, The Future of SSR. Taking centre stage in the discussion were key people behind the eBook, including: CIGI Senior Fellow and eBook editor Mark Sedra, and contributors Nicole Ball
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