Print Friendly Version: Section ||| Chapter ||| Book

7. Confronting the Challenges of Security Sector Transformation

AIM

This chapter summarises some of the major challenges facing African governments, African civil society and external actors in transforming the continent's security sectors discussed throughout this handbook with a view to clarifying the context in which security-sector transformation takes place:
  1. The challenge of transforming the security sector in a country without a tradition of democratic norms and practice.
  2. The challenge of understanding the political context of transformation.
  3. The challenge of moving beyond the defence sector.
  4. The challenge of a highly limited knowledge base.
  5. The challenge of finding acceptable limits to state secrecy while respecting the need for confidentiality in certain areas.
  6. The challenge of finding the appropriate balance between democratic accountability and control on the one hand and security body professionalism and discipline on the other hand.