Introduction

Human security is a paradigm for understanding global vulnerabilities whose proponents

challenges the traditional notion of national security through military security by arguing that the
proper referent for security should be at the human rather than national level. Human security
reveals a people-centred and multi-disciplinary understanding of security which involves a
number of research fields, including development studies, international relations, strategic
studies, and rights The United Nations Development Programme's 1994 Human Development
Report is considered a milestone publication in the field of human security, with its argument
that ensuring "freedom from want" and "freedom from fear" for all persons is the best path to
tackle the problem of global insecurity.

What is security

See from SECURITY Question

Definition of Human Security

The concept of human security emanates from the conventional security studies which centers on
the security of the state. Its focus is individuals and its ultimate end point is the protection of
people from traditional and non-traditional threats. Centre to this concept is the belief that human
security deprivations can undercut peace and stability within and among states. The Commission
on Human Security (CHS) in one of its work defines human security as: The ability to protect the
vital core of all human lives in such a way that it enhances human freedoms and human
fulfilment. Human security means protecting fundamental freedoms that are the essence of life.

It is important to state that human security covers every area of human needs. This is why it
serves as the basis of all forms and categories of security.

Origins

The emergence of the human security discourse was the product of a convergence of factors at
the end of the Cold War. These challenged the dominance of the neorealist paradigm's focus on
states, “mutually assured destruction” and military security and briefly enabled a broader concept
of security to emerge. The increasingly rapid pace of globalization; the failure of liberal state
building through the instruments of the Washington Consensus; the reduced threat of nuclear war
between the superpowers, the exponential rise in the spread and consolidation of democratization
and international human rights norms opened a space in which both ‘development’ and concepts
of ‘security’ could be reconsidered.

The principal possible indicators of movement toward an individualized conception of security

lie in the first place in the evolution of international society's consideration of rights of
individuals in the face of potential threats from states. The most obvious foci of analysis here are
the UN Charter, the UN Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and its associated
covenants (1966), and conventions related to particular crimes (e.g., genocide) and the rights of
particular groups (e.g., women, racial groups, and refugees).

The Seven Dimensions of Human Security

Human security is characterized by seven dimensions of security. These are:

Economic Security: This type of security requires an assured basic income for individuals
mostly from productive and remunerative work or from a publicly financed safety net. In this
sense, only about a quarter of the world's people are presently economically secure and the
economic security problem may be more serious in third world countries. Major threats of
economic security are poverty, unemployment, indebtedness, lack of income.

Food Security: Food security demands that all people at all times have both physical and
economic access to basic food. Major threats to this include hunger, famines and the lack of
physical and economic access to basic food. In the past, food security problems have been dealt
with at both national and global levels. However, their impacts are limited. According to UN, the
key is to tackle the problems relating to access to assets, work and assured income (related to
economic security).

Health Security This tends to guarantee a minimum protection from diseases and unhealthy
daily life. In less - developed countries, the major causes of death traditionally were infectious
and diseases, Inadequate health care, new and recurrent diseases including epidemics and
pandemics, poor nutrition and unsafe environment and unsafe lifestyles; whereas in develop
countries, the major killers are diseases of the circulatory system.
Environmental Security The primary goal of this is to protect people from the short and long-
term ravages of nature, man-made threats in nature, and deterioration of the natural environment.
In the third world countries, lack of access to clean water resources is one of the greatest
environmental threats while the major threats in industrial countries are air pollution and global
warming which are caused by the emission of greenhouse gases.

Personal Security ;This is all about the protection of individuals and people from physical
violence either from the state or outside the state. It could be from violent individuals, sub-state
actors and from domestic abuse. Hence, the greater and the common threat to personal security
from the state (torture), other states (war), groups of people (ethnic tension), individuals or gangs
(crime), industrial, workplace or traffic accidents. The security threats theft, armed robbery,
burglary, food poisoning, electrocution, fire outbreak, home accident and host of others.

Community Security Community security aims to protect people from the loss of traditional
relationships, values and from sectarian and ethnic violence. Traditional communities,
particularly minority ethnic groups are often threatened. About half of the world's states have
experienced some inter-ethnic rivalry. Threats to community security are usually from the group
(oppressive practices), between groups (ethnic violence), from dominant groups (e.g. indigenous
people's vulnerability).

Political security: This embraces guarantee and protection of fundamental human rights of
citizenry. It is concerned with whether people live in a society that honours their basic freedoms.
Some of threats attached to these are political or state repression, including torture,
disappearance, human rights violations, detention and imprisonment.

Importance of human security

By placing people at the centre of analysis and action, human security:

1. Attributes equal importance to civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of
individuals and communities.
2. Human security addresses the full range of human insecurities faced by communities
including, but not limited to, violent conflicts, extreme impoverishment, natural disasters,
health pandemics, etc
 3. Helps to ensure policy coherence and coordination across traditionally separate fields and
doctrines, and enables comprehensive and integrated solutions from the fields of
development, security, humanitarian action and human rights in an integrated manner.
4. Addresses different threats as they manifest themselves in specific contexts.
5. Builds on processes that are based on peoples’ own perceptions of fear and vulnerability.
6. Addresses root causes of crises and their impact on human insecurities.
7. Emphasizes early prevention rather than late intervention, where benefits include greater
cost-effectiveness.
8. Encourages strategies concerned with the development of mechanisms for prevention.

Relationship with traditional security

Coined in the early 1990s, the term human security has been used by thinkers who have sought
to shift the discourse on security away from its traditional state-cantered orientation to the
protection and advancement of individuals within societies.

Relationship with development

Human development is defined as the process of expanding human choices; because it is under
the existence of human security that three view points of economic welfare, human resources
expansion and identifying basic needs of society for flourishing human development is being
achieved.
Conclusion