Money Matters: Addressing the Financial Sustainability of Security Sector Reform

Rory Keane · Thorodd Ommundsen

Sep 2015 · SSR Papers Book 11 · Ubiquity Press

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About this ebook

Although the financial sustainability of United Nations (UN) support to institutional capacity building in post-conflict contexts may be the least analysed topic on the peacebuilding agenda, understanding the costs of rebuilding and maintaining the security sector should be one of the most important priorities for security sector reform (SSR) practitioners today. Through innovative partnerships between the UN and the World Bank, a new and important practice area in public financial management of the security sector is beginning to take shape. This paper traces the new demands placed on peacekeeping operations to “get more bang for every peacekeeping buck”, and explores how to match SSR priorities and recurring costs in the security sector with available resources over the long term. In presenting the lessons learned from the security sector public expenditure review conducted by the UN and the World Bank in Liberia in 2012, the first such review jointly undertaken by the two organizations, the paper seeks to illustrate how the discussion on right-sizing of the security sector can go hand in hand with a discussion on right-financing in order to help prioritize key reforms pragmatically in light of the available fiscal space. Specifically, the paper provides SSR practitioners with insights into the challenges often encountered when assisting national authorities to address the political economy of SSR, and how to navigate those dilemmas.

About the author

Rory Keane currently heads the UN Liaison Office for Peace and Security in Brussels. Previously he served as the SSR adviser to the Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Liberia between 2010 and 2012, where he led the first security sector public expenditure review undertaken jointly by the UN and the World Bank. He has published broadly on issues related to SSR, human security, peacebuilding, the EU Common Security and Defence Policy and conflict dynamics in fragile settings.

Thorodd Ommundsen serves as an SSR officer with the SSR Unit in the Office of Rule of Law and Security Institutions, UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations. In his capacity as the unit’s focal point for the World Bank partnership, he contributed to the security sector public expenditure reviews in Liberia (2012) and Somalia (2015). Previously he worked for the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Liberia and the Permanent Mission of Norway to the UN, and has served with a number of international non-governmental organizations.

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