Security sector governance and reform (SSG/R) often touches on sensitive and political issues that are central to the authority of any government or society. Therefore, it is an inherently risky process, especially in fragile or unstable contexts where numerous factors can cause democratic backsliding, weaken security governance mechanisms, and nullify any norms of government accountability.
The successive coup d’états in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger have signaled a failure of basic security sector governance norms and questioned the effectiveness of reforms in these states. At the same time, they raise new questions about the way forward: is SSR possible under military rule following a coup? How can governance-supporting organizations, like DCAF, navigate in such contexts marked by a primacy of military actors over civilian ones, a fundamental questioning of democratic norms, and shrinking civic space?
As DCAF teams soon found out, military coups in the Sahel make SSR more challenging but also even more necessary. These events introduced significant new risks for our programs and raised important questions. Can we reasonably expect to advance reforms and contribute to improved governance under these conditions? What are the risks associated with advocating a reform agenda correlated with democratic governance, transparency, and accountability norms? In a situation with rapidly deteriorating human rights, what is the likelihood that our efforts will fail in shaping the norms, standards, behaviors, and attitudes of security institutions?
Additionally, there is a heightened risk of being instrumentalized by non-democratic military regimes, which could inadvertently legitimize actors or political processes that hinder peaceful transitions or cement undesirable outcomes, such as enacting laws limiting civilian oversight opportunities. Furthermore, our own staff, as well as partners, might be taking great personal risks when engaging in a shrinking civic space, where any action can be seen as providing legitimacy to the new authorities.
Yet, there are important reasons for remaining engaged in such countries as their national governments attempt to address acutely deteriorating security situations. It is too early to tell if SSR engagement would slow the decline in standards and norms, and in turn, help buy time until a transition process is underway and there is an opportunity to reintroduce SSG principles. We try to engage our national partners in ongoing efforts to keep good governance and SSR central to transitional agendas, underpinning the demand for reform from civil society and potentially strengthening the capacity of human rights bodies such as national human rights commissions. Moreover, SSR in such contexts has great potential as a risk management and risk mitigation tool and thus contributes to quelling further escalation of violence.
In contrast, disengagement significantly reduces the ability of the international community to provide timely and relevant support if or when the security situation normalizes. Disengagement can create a void where national actors supporting democratic governance are isolated, marginalized, and gradually disempowered, worsening the situation.
Concretely, these considerations have translated into unique strategies for Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, and tested our capacity for adaptive programming. In Mali, for example, after an initial pause in all programming in 2020 following the August coup, DCAF has resumed support for the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), including preparation for the 2023 Symposium national, which, along with the l’Espace d’interpellation démocratique (EID), remains one of the few forums for open discussion on human rights and security issues. We weighed the risks and decided to resume our work with the police and gendarmerie to ensure that preliminary steps (such as a 30% female recruitment quota in the police) would not stall during the transition and impede progress towards diversity and inclusivity. We have seen how integrating gender has translated into a better, more nuanced, and effective police service that is more likely to consider different perspectives and understandings of security.
Despite the highly authoritarian character of the transitional military government in Burkina Faso, we were able to continue our regional engagement on transparency and control over defense spending. We organized a conference in Ouagadougou with delegates from Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger, representing defense and security services, parliaments, administrative and judicial control bodies, regulatory authorities, and civil society organizations. Throughout the conference, we observed how questions of financial oversight were taken up by national delegates, preserving a space for dialogue even on issues as sensitive as corruption, while overall maintaining a technical focus. Despite the growing pressure on civil society actors, these discussions have led to the establishment of inclusive frameworks for dialogue, reinforcing the essential role of whistleblowers on corruption issues.
The coup d’état in Niger in July 2023 has called into question the many assumptions underpinning DCAF’s wide-ranging SSR program in the country. The decision of whether to stay engaged – and if so, how – was based on the programmatic risks and the stands of civil society, donors, and regional actors. Just like in Mali and Burkina Faso, we aim to ensure civilian actors and civil society are not marginalized or excluded from policy dialogue. We had completed a comprehensive assessment of our support strategy for Nigerien civil society in June, a month prior to the coup, but the upending of the constitutional order and narrowing of the civil space have required a thorough re-evaluation. We now focus our work on documenting the security needs of the population and encouraging CSOs to use these findings to advocate for a more people-centered security approach.
Conclusions
Rarely does a security sector reform take place in an ‘ideal setting’; current experiences in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger show that there are opportunities to influence democratic governance even in cases of non-constitutional changes in government. Without exception, the often hidden, indirect, or underlying risks that may be associated with security sector governance require robust risk assessment and risk management systems that will minimize potential, and often unintentional, harm. Honing and adapting our capacity for continuous analysis of stakeholders (their powers, motivations, or incentives), political processes (such as power interests), and conflict dynamics has been the focus of our efforts and a source of important learning for DCAF over the past months.
Intense communication and dialogue with donors and other strategic partners on emerging risks have helped DCAF in making significant programming adaptations, in some cases shifting from initiating actual reforms to creating new demand and space for reforms that can be pursued when the context changes. It is this ability to continue to engage with actors through capacity building, dialogue, awareness raising, and direct support that helps ensure that reforms can and will advance when the context normalizes and there is a resumption of pre-coup transition processes.