Human Security in Asia
The Citigroup Series on Asian Distinguished Leaders

Sadako Ogata
Japan International Cooperation Agency

New York, November 10, 2004

President Desai (Asia Society), Ms. Robbins (Citigroup),
Ladies and gentlemen,

I am honored to have this opportunity to be here today and to speak before the members of the Asia Society, Japan Society and other distinguished guests. Tonight, I would like to talk about the importance of promoting human security, and how Asian countries can contribute.

Today, we live in a world where the nature of the sources of insecurity seems to be rapidly evolving. Last week, I attended the final session of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, which, by sheer coincidence, was held in a hotel overlooking ground zero. Since the horrifying attacks on the World Trade Center three years ago, the world seems to be increasingly confronted with a more elusive form of threats such as terrorism. The attack was a stark reminder that even states with secured financial power, cannot shield people from the types of threats and violence that prevail in today’s world. It was also a painful lesson that ignoring a country left in desperate poverty and disorder, such as Afghanistan, can breed extremists to strike at the heart of the developed world.

But today’s global threats emanate not only from violence or terrorism. Diseases, such as SARS, bird flu and HIV/ AIDS, as well as mass destruction weapons, nuclear or chemical, threaten people across borders. In today’s globalizing world, where people, goods, services and viruses can quickly move across borders, a problem in one country quickly affects the neighbors. People in Asia have learned these realities through experience in recent years.

Of course, globalization has had some positive effects on people’s lives. The increasing openness in trade, investments and information flows have contributed to a remarkable rate of economic growth in the region. At the same time, however, the rising interdependence has meant that the region has become more vulnerable to adverse developments elsewhere. The financial crisis brought this reality painfully home in the late 1990s, as it directly affected millions of people across the region. This financial crisis in Asia, in fact, gave rise to seeking alternative sources of security, which focused more directly on people.

Faced with the financial crisis in Asia in 1997, then Prime Minister of Japan, Keizo Obuchi, began to emphasize the need for establishing social safety nets to protect people from sudden economic downturns. The impact of the sudden financial crisis was particularly harsh at the time, especially when many countries in Asia were experiencing an increasing economic growth. Moreover, Asian societies with strong family and communal ties were assumed to ride through economic difficulties. Confronted with the situation of growing vulnerability, Mr. Obuchi said that ways should be found to assure people to live “without having their survival threatened or their dignity impaired.” He was primarily speaking about the need to protect people in a financial crisis. There was also a growing recognition that the larger political and social uncertainty issues had to be addressed if people’s livelihoods were to be protected.

There were other strands of developments emerging that threatened the lives of the people worldwide. At the time, I was serving as UN High Commissioner for Refugees, grappling with the challenges of providing protection and solutions to the victims of conflict. In the decade following the end of the Cold War, the nature of war had changed from inter-state to intra-state conflicts. The sources of insecurity became largely internal, with ethnic, religious and political groups fighting over contested rights and resources with vengeance. There were brutal conflicts in Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Sierra Leone, to name a few. The international community, however, was short on effective tools to deal with the myriads of these claims.

Traditionally, security threats were assumed to emanate from other states. States were held responsible to ensure the security of their boundaries, people, institutions and values. States built powerful military structures to defend themselves and people were presumably assured of their security by the shields of the state. Territorial boundaries were considered inviolable, and external interference in internal affairs of sovereign states was not acceptable. But in internal conflict situation, people were victimized by the power of the state or caught in violence between groups within the state.

Humanitarian agencies, such as UNHCR, were to provide emergency assistance and protection staying close to the victims. The challenges thus fell on humanitarian agencies to protect the civilians caught in conflict. The need for political, military and development measures to protect these people became increasingly evident. I eventually came to realize that there was a need for a different kind of approach to security, one that focused on the security of human beings. People had to be at the central focus, rather than the state. The varied range of security needs and aspirations of people must be the starting point in any security debate.

The UN Millennium Summit of 2000, provided the opportunity to launch a broadened concept of security. Secretary General declared that people should be assured the “freedom from want” and “freedom from fear”, thus addressing the challenges of responding to economic and social needs, as well as political and military threats. Responding also to this UN declaration, Japan, under Prime Minister Mori who succeeded late Prime Minister Obuchi, announced Japan’s commitment to promote human security. In so doing, Japan came up with two major initiatives: one was the establishment of the UN Trust Fund for Human Security, and the other was the setting up of the Commission on Human Security. The Commission was mandated “to develop the concept of human security as an operational tool for policy formulation and implementation.”

I was invited to co-chair the Commission on Human Security, together with Nobel Prize economist Mr. Amartya Sen. The Commission focused on the security of people who are under critical and pervasive threats, victims of conflict, refugees and displaced persons, people living in abject poverty facing hunger and disease. The question of long-term inequalities among groups was also identified as a key factor that leads to violence and eventually to humanitarian and political crises. After a year of research, the report, “Human Security Now!” was published and has been translated into six languages.

How can human security be assured and promoted? Rather than viewing people solely as passive recipients of assistance, support or protection by the state, the Commission regarded people as active contributors who can determine their own fate and that of their community. By empowering people, through education, social mobilization and participation in public life, they will be able to cope better with the threats confronting them in daily life. Strengthening the protection of people does not only imply respecting the civil and political rights of people but equally their economic, social and cultural rights. Without access to basic health services or the ability to earn a livelihood, for example, the value of participating in public life would remain limited.

The Commission also regarded the protective role of the state as vital in advancing human security. Protection means improving law and order and strengthening judicial institutions so that state systems and authorities can better serve the people. Securing access to their basic human needs is a responsibility of the state. This is a top-down approach. The Commission’s approach is therefore two-pronged: top-down and bottom-up. Efficient and effective administrative capacity is vital for human security. Education and training are key to empowerment. Access to water, schools and health facilities is fundamental, but what is important is for the communities to build its capacity to manage these facilities on their own and gain self-reliance. Promoting self-reliance through empowerment then becomes a stronger shield and protection to individuals and communities even at times of sudden economic downturns or eruption of war.

To promote human security, Japan has recently incorporated the concept in its overseas development aid policies. Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), to which I am now serving as president, has begun to strengthen programs from the human security perspective. In a water project in Senegal, for example, I observed that JICA not only deals with the project as pure infrastructure construction but also makes sure to take the occasion to train the community to maintain the facilities. In the course of implementation, the villagers themselves gained basic mechanical skills and came up with the ideas of having women in charge of financial management to maintain the water system themselves.

Japan traditionally had incorporated the aspects of human security promotion in its economic development policies, although it did not consciously call it “human security”. In providing development assistance in Asia, Japan had stressed self-reliance and ownership, building the capacity of people. As Japan extended development assistance to Asian countries since the 1950s, many of the Asian countries have experienced a remarkable growth. Today, having overcome the financial crisis of the late 1990s, the region for the most part is stable and showing rapid advancement, both economically and socially. We must continue to work on ways to promote this stability and possibly extend it beyond the region.

The post-conflict peace building process in Afghanistan offers a practical example of how the two pronged human security approach could be usefully applied. Having suffered more than 20 years of conflict and persistent drought, Afghanistan ranked the lowest in the world by any measure of development. Since an interim government was established in December 2001, the international community finally began to pour in major efforts to rebuild the country. While governing capacities are being re-established at the state level, reconstruction of schools, health facilities and water supplies are being restored at the community level. While the Afghan army and police are being trained, 3.8 million refugees have returned home and five million children, including girls, are going back to school. Both humanitarian and development agencies, as well as the United Nations and donor governments, are supporting the determination of Afghan government and its people to rebuild their state and society. Promoting ownership and accountability is key to human security and strengthening the civil society provides important linkages at all levels.

Japan, too, is playing an important role in helping Afghanistan. It is taking the lead in DDR (disarmament, demobilization and reintegration). Facilitating former combatants to lay down arms and to be reintegrated into civilian society is a difficult, but important step in peace-building. Japan is also contributing to reconstructing main highways, as well as building schools and providing other development assistance at the community level. Japan’s assistance to Afghanistan is an experience of how a civilian power, such as Japan, can contribute to the peace and development of a post-conflict country largely through non-military means. Working closely with the Afghans and other donors, reconstruction of Afghanistan is an experience of how international efforts can be mobilized to protect the people and communities through state-building.

But how do we promote human security in a conflict situation? How can we protect civilians in the midst of an on-going conflict, such as in the Darfur region of the Sudan? What about those who have not fled North Korea but are left to suffer from extreme poverty and food shortages? These are still questions yet to be answered. The question of intervention is a highly debated issue. But at least in Africa, there are some positive signs of regional initiatives.

Earlier this year, I visited the African Union Headquarters in Ethiopia during my three-week travel to four countries in Africa. Last month, I again had an opportunity to hold extensive discussions with the Chairman of the Commission of the African Union and other leaders of Africa. I was quite impressed with their determination to take on themselves the Darfur and other crises in Africa. The AU, for example, is sending protection troops to Sudan to monitor the cease-fire in Darfur. African countries are also discussing to set up regional rapid reaction forces that can quickly be deployed in crisis situations, without having to wait for the slow deployment of international peace-keepers. Of course, their resources are limited and the challenges are insurmountable. But I believe it is time that the international community support these initiatives in Africa, whose peace and stability are not unrelated to us all.

The AU Charter, in fact, clearly refers to human security in its chapter on Peace and Security. In Europe, too, a human security doctrine is being proposed before the European Union, which attempts to formulate a civil and military combined force that would not threaten but complement the state in conflict to protect its people. These are encouraging developments in regional initiatives which must be supported by the international community and possibly emulated in other regions of the world, perhaps even in Asia.

I am happy to see that in a year since the Human Security Commission produced its report, several initiatives have emerged to promote human security. Although regionally diverse, I hope that creative initiatives would also arise from Asia to collectively promote human security in the region and beyond.

Another way to begin promoting human security in Asia may be to participate in the Human Security Trust Fund, established at the United Nations. Its board members have just met this week, to discuss ways to promote multi-sector aid projects in line with human security and to expedite the disbursement of funds. The Trust Fund was initially set up by Japan as mentioned earlier, but I hope that others, especially countries from Asia, can join in the efforts to promote concrete activities.

Lastly, promoting human security is not only the concern of governments. Private businesses play a major role in strengthening the power of people and communities. Investments and trade not only enhance the global economy, but also strengthen and empower people. As seen in the case of Afghanistan, by helping people in a remote country toward self-reliance, you will also gain trust and partnership in the globalizing world.

Human Security is not a sheer concept. It is a guide to practical action to build a secure world, by mobilizing the broadest participation of people and communities.

Thank you