The Security Challenges in Africa. "Bridging the Gap Between Human Security and State Security Through Institutional Reforms"

Book excerpt: Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2015 in the subject Politics - Region: Africa, , course: Development and Governance, language: English, abstract: This paper seeks to show that institutional reforms are urgently needed in the area of security (physical security, human security & state security) especially as the general idea that the inability of most African states during their developmental stage to ensure national cohesion, as relevant as it might seem, is being overtaken by other emerging factors notably their inability to control boundaries and provide their citizens’ right to life of which freedom is a very important component. These perceived weaknesses of most States in Africa epitomize the concept of failed states. This paper proposes a merger between human security and state security as the contemporary security breaches are multidimensional and in a State’s bid to adequately roll out measures to tackle the latter, it is only rational that the situation will be analyzed holistically. To address this issue our article adopted the following problematic: «What could be done to ensure that the culture of peace, conflict prevention and resolution in the wake of the numerous security challenges lead to development and by extension sustainable development?»