Grant recipients of the 2nd Small Grants Initiative
Biography: Anupama Srinivasan is Programme Director of the Gender Violence Research and Information Taskforce (GRIT) at Prajnya, a think-tank based in Chennai, India. She is a social sciences researcher by training, with a particular interest in issues related to public health and gender. Anupama is also a consultant and resource person for a community health project on tuberculosis and has previously worked on research projects on mental health, disability & ethnicity and media reporting on HIV and AIDS. Anupama holds a Masters degree in Development Studies and International Relations from the University of East Anglia, Norwich, U.K. She is also a trained journalist and documentary filmmaker, and is part of a performance collective called Perch.
Research proposal: Gender Violence as Insecurity: Research Trends in South Asia
What do we know about the incidence, frequency, varieties, causes and costs of gender violence in South Asia? The primary objective of this study Gender Violence as Insecurity: Research Trends in South Asia, is to identify, document, map, analyse and compare the different approaches to gender violence research in South Asia. The nature, quality and accessibility of research make a tremendous difference to the service, advocacy and policy-making sectors that work on this issue, one that affects the everyday security of millions of individuals and communities. Therefore, this project will assess the state of the art of research on gender violence in this populous region.
Biography: Ms. Cerue Konah Garlo is a hands-on peacebuilding activist and civil society leader experienced in designing, delivering and evaluating capacity building and institutional strengthening trainings with a principal focus on advocacy, community mobilization and citizen participation, in particular for gender mainstreaming issues. She was instrumental in mobilizing thousands of Liberian women to successfully demonstrate for the end of the civil war. Ms. Garlo then turned her considerable energies to helping formulate and effect policy change on laws impacting women, most notably the 2005 Anti-rape law and inheritance laws. Ms. Garlo’s strong project and financial management skills derive from her extensive professional experience, coupled with her degree in accounting and economics.
Research proposal: Assessing and Profiling Women in Security Sectors in Liberia
Liberia is currently undertaking the complex and difficult task of post-conflict reconstruction that involves working towards economic recovery, rebuilding of the state, (re)construction of basic social infrastructure, and implementing politically sensitive processes like security sector reform (SSR). Ideally, the SSR process should be comprehensive, all-inclusive and participatory but this has not been the case. On the contrary, the process has been lopsided and exclusivist, focusing mainly on the police, army and recently the immigration. Oversight institutions like the Liberian parliament and civil society have not played any significant role in the on-going SSR process. DynCorp and the US government have been in charge of defense reform; UNMIL has been undertaking police reform; and a cohort of external and internal actors have been engaged in security sector governance issues. These include but are not limited to the African Security Sector Network (ASSN), the Conflict, Security and Development Group (CSDG) at King’s College, ECOWAS; and the Governance Commission (GC) and the Civil Society Working Group on SSR. One of the deficits of the SSR process in the country is that gender and women’s issues have not been prioritized. Therefore, the new and emerging security structures have not paid specific attention to gender and women issues including gender-based violence and women’s participation. In order to address this problem, a number of international, regional and national women’s institutions have taken some initiatives aimed at maximizing the protection and promotion of women’s rights through the opportunities provided by the SSR process in the country.
Biography: Fernando works in the Ministry of Defense of Argentina as an advisor and consultant. He founded his consultant agency where he works as an independent consultant, specialized in the areas of quantitative analysis on citizen’s security policy and defense policy, impact evaluation assessment on public policies, budgeting and fiscal policy. Currently he also works as a research assistant in the Center for Economic Research and Teaching (CIDE) in Mexico City, and as an assistant professor in the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and Universidad de San Andrés.
Research proposal: Inefficiency, Ineffectiveness and unfairness: On the misspending and misallocation of security resources. Unveiling the unknown costs of security in a comparative perspective in Latin America
Misspending and misallocation of economic resources designated to security generate a perverse dynamic where the resources are allocated and spent where they are less needed and, as resources are scarce, less spending is done where the marginal spending of security resources would generate greater impact –mainly in the most vulnerable populations-. The author analyzes and compares public and private costs of security in two countries of Latin America (Argentina and México).
Biography: Manish Thapa is an Assistant Professor at Department of Conflict, Peace & Development Studies at Tribhuvan University and Regional Coordinator of South Asian Regional Cooperation Academic Network – SARCAN (www.sarcan.info). He is Doctoral Research Candidate in International Studies at the University of Tokyo working on his research project titled: From Bullet to Ballot: The Politics of Peacemaking in Nepal. He is recipient of prestigious Robert McNamara Fellowship (2009-2010) from the World Bank and currently based at Department of Peace & Conflict Research at Uppsala University, Sweden. His research interests include conflict transformation & peacebuilding, post-conflict security, non-traditional security issues and prospects of regional cooperation in South Asia.
Research proposal: Non-traditional Security Cooperation Framework: A Step towards Regionalism in South Asia
South Asia has come a long way in forging regional cooperation. Yet numerous conflicts and challenges impede full cooperation and economic development among them. The formation of effective regionalism in South Asia requires confidence building at multiple levels of relations in the region. The central argument of this research project is that multilateral cooperation over non-traditional security issues will contribute to the building of mutual confidence in the region. The research aims to rectify major non-traditional security issues in South Asia, which can be confronted through viable framework of regional cooperation
Biography: Mikewa Arunga Ogada is a partner at Adili Consulting, a Nairobi-based governance consultancy. Previously, he headed the Research Programme at the Kenya Human Rights Commission. He studied political science at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, USA and the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. His current research interests include security sector reform, terrorism and human rights groups. He is co-author of “Regional Challenge, Local Response: State Anti-Terrorism Measures and Human Rights Advocacy in Kenya” in Civil Society Under Strain: The War on Terror Regime, Civil Society and Aid Post-9/11, J. Howell and J. Lind (eds), Sterling, Virginia: Kumarian Press, 2009.
Research proposal: The Role of Civil Society Groups in Security Governance in Kenya: The Case Study of the Coast Interfaith Clerics' Council
This study seeks to address the gaps in knowledge about the approaches and achievements of religious actors in security governance in Kenya: How are they shaping discourses and practices on community security? How are they redefining community security within the context of the “Counterterrorism Era” in Kenya? Why have religious actors working on security issues gained acceptability among communities? What impact are they having on the security of vulnerable people? This study sheds light on these questions by examining the work of the Coast Interfaith Clerics’ Council, which brings together different religious actors to address security issues of mutual concern.
Biography: Sabastiano Rwengabo is a Research Fellow with Centre for Basic Research (CBR), Kampala/Uganda, and a member of CODESRIA, Dakar/Senegal. He holds Bachelor of Arts (First Class) and Master of Arts from Makerere University, Kampala. Rwengabo researches on Governance and Democratisation, Security, Regionalism/Regional Integration, and Gender. Under CODESRIA’s Governance Research, he attended the Governance Institutes in Dakar: August 2008 (Religions and Religiosities in African Governance) and August 2009 (Private Security Companies and Democratic Governance in Africa). He coordinates TrustAfrica’s Religion and Democratisation Processes in Africa project. He is now researching on: Private Security in the Slum Areas of Kampala City, Uganda.
Research proposal: Neither Formal Nor Marketised: Private Security in the Slum Areas of Kampala City, Uganda
Studies on privatized security in Africa address the dynamics and actors necessitating this development, and its potential and actual costs. Not enough attention has been paid to private security in urban areas, more so in Uganda’s capital City. Yet contemporaneous with expansion in and around Kampala city has been privatisation of security, slums expansion, increases/changes in urban crime, and privatization of security, responding to urban insecurity. Inspired by this gray area, this research will investigate non-formal and non-market private security mechanisms developed in slum areas of Kampala, with the view to drawing implications for the management of urban security.
Biography: Titilope Ajayi holds an MA in International Affairs and a BA Political Science and French from the University of Ghana, Legon. She previously worked as Regional Programme Manager at the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, a German not-for-profit foundation in Abuja, Nigeria, and at the African Security Dialogue and Research (ASDR), a Ghana-based NGO, as Senior Programme Assistant. Her research interests include Gender and Security, Private Security Companies, and the relationship between the UN and African regional organizations in the area of peace and security. She is currently a Research Associate at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC), Ghana.
Research proposal: Appraising State Responses To Women's Security Challenges: An Assessment Of Ghana's Domestic Violence Victim Support Unit (Dovvsu) - Lessons For Nigeria
There are high levels of VAW and sexual victimization of women all over Africa. Violence against women (VAW) has important health, social and economic consequences for the survivors, their families, and the communities and the countries where they live. Women’s units within police stations are one way in which specialized support can be given to survivors of gender based violence (GBV) or violence against women (VAW). This study constitutes an appraisal of the Domestic Violence Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service (GPS) - one of a few in Africa set up exclusively to handle cases of VAW - to determine how effective such units are at tackling VAW where they exist.
Biography: Paula Vásquez is a social worker with a degree from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, specialized in conflict mediation. She has also an undergraduate diploma of Public Policies for Crime Reduction from the Centre of Studies on Citizen Security (CESC) of the Universidad de Chile. Paula has worked mainly in areas relative to crime prevention, specializing in prevention at the local, community and neighborhood level. For seven years she was the head of Municipal Plan for Public Security of the Chilean Government in two municipalities of the Metropolitan Region. Paula is currently the coordinator of the project titled “Improving the Access to Justice and Collaborative Resolution of Conflicts”, financed by the European Union and executed by the Chilean Ministry of Justice.
Research proposal: The Impact of the Learning of Community Mediators in Crime Prevention at the Local Level
During the past years, citizen security is seen as a globalized problem emerging with renewed importance. Although it is a global problem, it is characterized by specific features in each country. In Chile the center-leftwing governments of the last years have promoted a preventive approach of the problematic of security and crime prevention. This research seeks to evaluate the impact of one of the products provided within the projects developed through the Public Security Plan in the municipalities of the Metropolitan Region. These products are the tools for community mediation given to local agents in schools in order to adopt a preventive and participative approach. The aim is to implement an accumulative learning process on this type of initiatives in order to achieve an active participation from the community in conflict resolution, and generate information that helps monitoring the achievement of the objectives defined in the project. The experience generated from the evaluation process is to be used in new, similar projects.
Download Research Proposal (in Spanish)
Biography: Graduate in History with honors from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Professor and researcher at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. Saúl has tought at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and at the Master’s course on security and national defense of the Escuela Superior de Guerra (Colombia). Editorial coordinator of the magazine Memoria y Sociedad. Member and co-founder of the research group International Relations and Armed Forces. Member of the Red de Seguridad y Defensa de América Latina (RESDAL) and the group Seguridad en Democracia, CLACSO. He has been awarded scholarships from the Latin American Studies Association (2004), the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies (2007) and Uppsala University-Indevelop (2009). He is the author of the books La influencia de los Estados Unidos en el Ejército Colombiano (La Carreta Editores, 2006) and De milicias reales a militares contrainsurgentes (Editorial Javeriana, 2008). He is also the author of several articles published in books and magazines, and has been invited by the media to comment on military and international affairs.
Research proposal: The Impact Of International Cooperation In The Transformation Of The Defense Sector In Countries In Conflict And Post-Conflict Situation: The Cases Of Colombia, Liberia And East Timor
The sensitiveness of the security topic has led several countries of the international community to consider it as a high priority in the processes of transition to peace in zones in conflict or post-conflict situation. Hence, international help has become a cornerstone of the transformation of security and defense in many developing countries, not by providing important recourses through international agencies and allied governments, but also through direct participation, which imply sending missions of police and military support. This collaboration has been effective in many aspects, but has also had time-delayed effects that have undermined an effective re-structuring. This project seeks to analyze the achievements and obstacles to international cooperation in security and defense in Colombia, Liberia and East Timor. The analysis of different case studies will help identifying the main lessons and impacts from this help at the local level, as well as its usefulness for future donors and recipients of this type of cooperation.
Download Research Proposal (in Spanish)
FACULTAD LATINOAMERICANA DE CIENCIAS SOCIALES (FLACSO- CHILE)
Av. Dag Hammarskjold 3269, Vitacura, Santiago de Chile.
Phones : (56 2) 2900200 - (56 2) 2900212
Email: securitytransformation@flacso.cl