REGIONAL WORKSHOP: GOVERNANCE FOR CITIZEN SECURITY IN LATIN AMERICA DEVELOPING SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION TO MANAGE KNOWLEDGE AND PROMOTE GOVERNANCE APPROACHES TO CITIZEN SECURITY BRASILIA, 8-9 OCTOBER 2012
Concept Note 1. BACKGROUND The relationship between Democratic Governance and Citizen Security in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) In spite of undeniable achievements in economic development as well as democracy, peace and stability in traditional terms in the last decades in region, countries of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) face important challenges related to extreme socio-economic inequalities and increasing levels of internal threats to the security of their citizens. With the highest regional rate of homicide in the world (25 homicides per 100,000 persons in LAC, and 44 in the Central American sub-region alone, versus a world average of 91), citizen security is a top priority for many Latin American countries. Opinion polls show that security is the number one concern of a majority of citizens in several countries of the region – for example, when asked “what is the most serious problem facing your country”, 83% of Salvadorans or 75-76% of Nicaraguans, Guatemalans and Costa Ricans mention crime in one of its modes, over economic or any other issues2. In other countries with relatively modest crime rates, such as Uruguay and Chile, security is likewise viewed as a top concern. Personal security is not only a basic human right in itself but also a condition for the fulfilment of all other human rights, as well as human development. The “human security” concept introduced by UNDP’s 1994 Human Development Report had already operated this shift from traditional “national security” or “State security” to a people-centred approach, and highlighted the fact that human security consisted in enabling people to safely and freely utilize a range of options to develop their lives. The notion of “citizen security”, therefore, refers to “the protection of all persons against the risk of suffering a violent or predatory crime” 3, and encompasses all types of crimes against persons as well as crimes against property – including private and public property. It puts the citizen at the centre of security concerns, thus implying that any action meant to improve security should focus on the needs, rights, and engagement of citizens. But the concept of “citizen security”, apart from being much more specific than human security in the types of security threats it covers 4, considers citizenship as the essence of security achievement, thus 1
Data for 2006, latest year for which sufficient information is available, Human Development Report for Central America (HDRCA) 2009-2010 2 HDRCA, 2009-2010 3 HDRCA, 2009-2010 4 Human security broadly includes economic, food, health, environmental, personal, community and political security, while citizen security focuses on personal security from crime.
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Promoting democratic governance for citizen security in Latin America and the Caribbean
highlighting the State-citizen relationship, the rights and responsibilities of citizens in matters of security, and the obligation of the State to protect them from criminal threats. Democratic governance is key to citizen security. Any durable improvement of citizen security necessarily has to go through: More responsiveness of institutions to citizens’ concerns, including a genuine improvement of performance of the key institutions in charge of citizen security (police, courts, prisons) and at all levels of government (national, local), as well as a more efficient identification of and response to citizens needs in broader terms, involving all three branches of the government and other sectors of public service delivery which influence citizen security. Local governments play a particular role in the improvement of such responsiveness. Inclusive participation of all citizens – and in fact also non-citizens present within the country’s borders –, with a specific focus on the poorest and most marginalized groups (including those communities systematically excluded because labeled as “dangerous”), in identifying problems and contributing to solutions for citizen security. Bridging the gap between State and society also needs to go through inclusive participation of a range of non-State actors, including civil society organizations, the media and private sector in the efforts to improve citizen security. An effort to respect and protect the human rights of all people equally within the design and implementation of citizen security policies. In view of the above, in a number of countries of the LAC region, citizen security is a key area through which the link between the State and citizens can be strengthened. Democratic governance in all its components has a key role to play, both in the process of addressing citizen security issues efficiently and as a result of genuinely improved citizen security.
Beyond the crime rate: assessing governance for citizen security as a means of achieving sustainable results Within efforts to tackle security issues effectively, one particular challenge that arises is the difficulty of obtaining reliable and relevant information to identify specific problems accurately and generate policy and programmatic responses. The most commonly used reference of crime rates per 100,000 inhabitants is recognized as conveying only part of a complex picture, as many crimes go unreported, certain types of crimes such as corruption or domestic violence are sometimes not considered as such culturally, some victims of homicides in poor marginalized areas are not even identified, etc. The capacity of official systems to collect, compare and centralize data on crime reports, citizens’ complaints, police detentions and court judgements is often weak, thus making accurate statistics practically impossible to obtain. The call for a broader vision and policy-making process on citizen security is accompanied by a pressing need for a better, broader and more inclusive monitoring of all its aspects. For example: Perceptions play an important role in matters of citizen security in LAC. The responsiveness of institutions, in those countries of the region most affected by the issue, depends highly on their actual and perceived performance in delivering security. The media also play an important role in shaping perceptions of (in)security. Beyond the crime rate itself, which is the overall goal of CS policies, several other elements such as legal and institutional frameworks and the actual performance of the institutions in charge of CS, including local levels of government, need to be measured in a comprehensive way, so as to allow an efficient identification of bottlenecks in the delivery of CS, and thus help design targeted solutions.
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Promoting democratic governance for citizen security in Latin America and the Caribbean
In order to ensure a more integral approach to CS issues, a broader range of sectors, including social service delivery to those urban areas most vulnerable to citizen insecurity, needs to be included within the assessment mechanism for citizen security. Innovative ways to capture less visible crimes such as corruption or domestic violence, and monitor them more accurately to include them within CS actions, need to be sought. In addition to diversifying the areas and sources of information, it is crucial to collect more qualitative and more inclusive information: all CS indicators should be as disaggregated as possible by gender, age, ethnicity, socio-economic level, geographical area, etc. to reflect the differences between populations groups and target the ones most in need. Official (supply-side) data should be complemented by experience-based data on the lived reality of citizens (demandside). Most importantly, inclusive participation implies that all the people concerned by citizen security, both on the supply-side and the demand-side of it, take part in the process of assessing it, of identifying the priority issues to be monitored and the methods for monitoring them in a way that is most representative of their actual concerns on the ground.
Conducted in such a participatory, locally-owned and representative way, a governance assessment process on citizen security can be a privileged way to help bridging the gap between the State and its citizens, by establishing an effective monitoring and accountability mechanism recognized as legitimate by all sides. It can help understand the phenomenon of citizen insecurity in a given area more accurately, set well-informed and specific policy targets in a participatory manner, and design more comprehensive solutions that will actually respond to needs on the ground.
Concrete experiences of success to be shared and to learn from A number of LAC countries have recognized this need for going beyond a restrictive approach to citizen security, and the importance of governance in tackling these issues. The 2009-2010 HDR for Central America and the 2011 HDR for the Caribbean highlight the need for a governance-oriented and more integral perspective on CS, taking into account the role of multiple actors in addition to the three “classical” CS institutions (police, prisons, penal courts), including all levels of government (national/local/municipal), private sector, civil society organizations, the media, and the citizens themselves. In practice, national and local/urban government entities in some LAC countries have pioneered policies based on this progressive vision with success. The creation of “community police” units who are based in and closer to the communities they aim to protect, coupled with investments in improving social service delivery to the same communities and partnership with NGOs to provide alternative activities and opportunities to the young, have proved more efficient than “mano dura” operations. On the assessment of citizen security from a governance perspective, several innovative projects are also to be noted, notably by academic institutions and non-governmental organizations, such as UNDP-supported project “Mexico Estatal” led by the Centre of Economic Research and Studies (CIDE) in Mexico, which offers a comprehensive and diversified range of indicators to monitor the Mexican States performance on CS, or Transparencia Mexicana’s initiative to promote self-assessment of local governments on their CS programmes, supported by UNDP. In Brazil, UNDP has been playing an
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important role in strengthening citizen security in the country through a number of projects in this area, as well as policy dialogue5. In this context, it is particularly relevant and timely to convene a forum for sharing experiences on how the democratic governance focus can make a difference in the fight for better citizen security in LAC. Innovative experiences from Brazil, Mexico and other LAC countries can be of great value to UNDP and national partners in the region working on with similar issues, as a means to strengthen South-South support at the regional level.
2. MEETING OBJECTIVES In view of the above-described background, this regional meeting is organized with the following objectives: Provide a forum for exchange of experiences and learning in the area of citizen security from a democratic governance perspective; Showcase innovative and replicable practices promoted by UNDP as well as governments and civil society organizations on democratic governance approaches to citizen security; Identify good practices and ways for improvement in the assessment/monitoring of citizen security with a governance perspective; Provide a forum for South-South cooperation, by promoting intra-regional fertilization on democratic governance practices, including governance monitoring practices, for citizen security; Produce a Discussion Paper on Citizen Security to be shared with governments, academics and development practitioners in LAC and other regions through the Global South-South development Academy, an initiative of the UNDP Special Unit for South-South Cooperation.
3. PARTICIPANTS Participants will include UN/UNDP staff working on citizen security and democratic governance from Latin America and elsewhere, national partners from government, civil society and academia.
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ORGANIZERS
This meeting is as a joint initiative of the UNDP Oslo Governance Centre (DGG/BDP) and UNDP Brazil, with technical support and guidance from the Crisis Prevention and Recovery team at the Panama Regional Centre and the UNDP Regional Bureau from Latin America and the Caribbean.
A unit of the Democratic Governance Group in the Bureau for Development Policy, the Oslo Governance Centre (OGC) is a global thematic facility designed to work with both UNDP policy specialists and external partners to assist developing countries in finding their own solutions to the challenges of governance facing them. The Centre has a special focus in addressing new and emerging areas of democratic governance and in building the capacity of UNDP’s front-line staff to address these new challenges. The OGC Global Programme on Democratic Governance Assessments (GAP) develops knowledge and provides direct support to regions and countries for conducting and promoting nationally-owned, participatory governance assessments.
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See http://www.pnud.org.br/publicacoes/segurancacidada_trabalhoPNUD.pdf
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UNDP-Brazil UNDP Brazil has a strategic role in the area of social policy, sustainable development and South-South Cooperation. The organization works with its partners in the dissemination and use of indicators in the context of social policies and sustainable development policies, and supports projects related to income transfer policies, health, education, urban and regional development and social inclusion. In recent years, UNDP Brazil has supported the integration of policies and programmes to reduce violence and promote a modern judicial system. Other priority areas include working to on promoting the rights of all citizens, encouraging civil society participation and the development of tools that increase the participation of social actors. UNDP’s Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, notably through its Regional Centres in Panama and Port of Spain, offers support to Country Offices to strengthen their capacity in project management, and to endorse the creation of strategic alliances and distribution of knowledge in highpriority areas of Latin America and the Caribbean. It develops knowledge and expertise, provides policy advisory and capacity development services across UNDP’s core mandates of supporting MDG Achievement and Poverty Reduction, Democratic Governance, Crisis Prevention & Recovery, and Energy, Environment for Sustainable Development, with gender, HIV issues and the human rights based approach to development mainstreamed into these core mandates. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
REFERENCES: New Dimensions of Human Security, Human Development Report, UNDP, 1994 Abrir espacios para la seguridad ciudadana y el desarrollo humano, Informe sobre Desarrollo Humano para América Central 2009-2010 Charting the Way Forward for the Preparation of the Caribbean Regional Human Development Report on Citizens’ Security, Anthony Harriot, Kingston, January 2010 Latin America and the Caribbean, Building an Inclusive, Responsive and Capable State, UNDP, February 2010
Fostering Social Accountability: From Principle to Practice, UNDP, August 2010 “Iniciativa para el Fortalecimiento de la Institucionalidad de la Seguridad Ciudadana Municipal” (IFIS): www.municipiosseguros.org.mx Proyecto “México Estatal”: www.mexicoestatal.cide.edu www.riocomovamos.org.br Centro de Estudos de Segurança e Cidadania: www.ucamcesec.com.br Altus Global Alliance on Public Safety and Justice - www.altus.org The political database of the Americas: http://pdba.georgetown.edu/Security/citizensecurity/citizensec_e.html Vera Institute for Justice: www.vera.org Woodrow Wilson Centre: www.wilsoncenter.org Governance Assessment Portal: www.gaportal.org RBLAC website: www.undp.org/latinamerica OGC website: www.undp.org/oslocentre UNDP-Brazil website: www.pnud.org.br Escuela Virtual: www.escuelapnud.org
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