Introduction

The Horn of Africa is one of the most conflict-prone regions in Africa. Despite changes of regime
and inter- national efforts to broker peace agreements, the countries of the region experience
consistently high levels of violence, within and across borders. Human security and insecurity are
universal issues. In every country there are individuals and groups who are insecure most in
developing countries, human security is at risk for vulnerable populations everywhere. Horn of
Africa is plagued by ongoing instability and insecurity, exacerbated by the close interdependence
of its constituent states, unfavorable climate and environmental conditions as well as,
importantly, by the geo-strategic Interests and ensuing initiatives of international actors.

The origins of human security

The evolution of threats, especially in the post-Cold War period, led to new thinking on security.
The term human security was first coined in the 1994 Global Human Development Report
(HDR) as a concept that equates security with people rather than territories, with development
rather than arms.
Proponents challenge the traditional notion of national security by arguing that the proper
reference for security should be the individual rather than the state. In describing the concept,
former Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan writes in the Foreword to Human
Security and the New Diplomacy: “During the Cold War, security tended to be defined almost
entirely in terms of military might and the balance of terror. Human insecurity remains a global
problem. The upsurge in the spate of terrorism, international crime, the spread of weapons of
mass destruction (WMDs) and diseases such as HIV/AIDS, SARS, avian flu, etc, environmental
degradation, the proliferation of conflicts cross the world all highlight the vulnerability of people
both in the north and in the south.
Human security acknowledges the interconnectedness between peace, human development and
human rights and considers these to be the building blocks of human and, therefore, national
security. At the same time, protecting the well-being of individuals and communities can clash
with securing territorial, economic, and political interests of the nation. Today, we know that
‘security’ means far more than the absence of conflict. We also have a greater appreciation for
non-military sources of conflict. We know that lasting peace requires a broader vision
encompassing areas such as education and health, democracy and human rights, protection

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against environmental degradation, and the proliferation of deadly weapons. We know that we
cannot be secure amidst starvation, that we cannot build peace without alleviating poverty, and
that we cannot build freedom on foundations of injustice. These pillars of what we now
understand as the people-centered concept of ‘human security’ are interrelated and mutually
reinforcing.” Human security and state or military security are not mutually exclusive and can be
complementary and contradictory at times.
What Is Human Security?
In the last two decades, human security has been elevated as an alternative to the state centered
security of the cold war years. The pre-eminence of human security suggests a departure from
the traditional meaning of security, which focused primarily on the state. Until the abatement of
the cold war, security was largely linked to the state. “National security” became a catchphrase
and was conceived in militarized and territorial terms. In the context of bipolarity, threats to the
state were seen as largely external and required military responses. This notion was widely
accepted by states and international organization.
The concept ‘security’ did not appear in the literatures of relevant policy fields until the 1940s.
At the beginning of its use, the meaning of security was restricted to the military defense of a
state’s territory, which continued for a period of nearly three decades - from the 1940s until the
1960s. This stance is familiar as the conventional (or traditional, or classical, or orthodox)
realists1 approach to security. A change occurred in the scope and meaning of security for the
first time in the 1960s. The understanding that economic power, diplomatic capability or
ownership of a key economic resource (e.g. oil) is pertinent in defining security has brought
about this change To begin with; there is no single definition of human security.
The concept of security has so far too long been interpreted narrowly: as a security
Of territory from external aggression, or as protection of national interest in foreign
Policy or as global security from the threat of nuclear holocaust. It has been related
More to nation-states than to people …. Forgotten were the legitimate concerns of
Ordinary people … For many of them, security symbolized protection from the
Threat of disease, hunger, unemployment, crime, social conflict, political repression,
And environmental hazards (UNDP 1994)

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Specifically, the UNDP Report (1994) identifies human security to involve two main
components – “freedom from fear and freedom from want.” These have been broadened into
seven main areas, including:
* Economic security – this means access to employment and the earning of basic income on a
sustained basis.
* Food security – this implies economic and physical access to food and balanced nutrition
* Health security – access to health facilities, medical care and basic drugs. It also means
protection from all forms of communicable and non-communicable diseases.
* Environmental security – this means the protection of the environment and its natural resources
upon which lives depend and exploiting natural resources in such a way as not to compromise its
use by future generations.
* Personal security – This means freedom from physical violence caused either by the state,
groups or individuals. It also means freedom from threat to life, including suicide and drugs.
Guaranteed both at home and at the work place.
*Community security – means the freedom to belong to a community or communities, be they
family, racial, religious, ethnic or others. Moreover, communities should be free from any forms
of harassment, violence or intimidation.
*Political security – This includes the freedom of the individual to hold particular political
views, subscribe to ideologies, and belong to political formations and freely express.
Although the definition of human security remains an open question, there is consensus among
its advocates that there should be a shift of attention from a state centered to a people-centered
approach to security that concern with the security of state borders should give way to concern
with the security of the people who live within those borders. The simplest definition of security
is “absence of insecurity and threats”. To be secure is to be free from both fear (of physical,
sexual or psychological abuse, violence, persecution, or death) and from want (of gainful
employment, food, and health). Human security therefore deals with the capacity to identify
threats, to avoid them when possible, and to mitigate their effects when they do occur. It means
helping victims cope with the consequences of the widespread insecurity resulting from armed
conflict, human rights violations and massive underdevelopment.
This broadened use of the word “security” encompasses two ideas: one is the notion of “safety”
that goes beyond the concept of mere physical security in the traditional sense, and the other the

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idea that people’s livelihoods should be guaranteed through “social security” against sudden
disruptions. The concept of human security was elaborated on the basis of empirical research
conducted after the end of the post-Cold War period. Respect for sovereignty was shaken too
many examples where states themselves became perpetuators of insecurities, not only failing to
fulfill their obligations toward their subjects but threatening their very existence In line with the
expanded definition of human security, the causes of insecurity are subsequently broadened to
include threats to socio-economic and political conditions, food, health, and environmental,
community and personal safety.
The overwhelming literature on human insecurity is muted on its causes. Not even the much
celebrated 1994 UNDP Report or the 2003 UN Commission Report on Human Security came
close to discussing the underlying causes of the problem beyond its symptoms. In the main,
discussions on human insecurity have been limited to an acknowledgement of its existence and
production of a chronology of its symptoms. Conditions such as poverty, health and food
insecurity, conflicts and population displacements noted in the UNDP report, are symptoms of
much more fundamental causes. Poverty is not natural; no child is born in Africa to be poor and
destined to lead an insecure life. Neither does poverty descend from the skies like rain or hail; it
is rather the consequence of a more fundamental cause. The same could be said of conflicts. No
people in their right senses like to constantly live under conditions of violence and war that
threaten their personal or community security.
Human in security in Horn of Africa
The Horn of Africa is a region of the East African peninsula comprising the states of Djibouti,
Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda, Kenya, Sudan and (most recently) South Sudan. These are
also the member states of the political regional grouping known as the Intergovernmental
Authority for Development (IGAD). As in other parts of Africa, the Horn is plagued by ongoing
instability and insecurity, exacerbated by the close interdependence of its constituent states,
unfavorable climate and environmental conditions as well as, importantly, by the geo-strategic
Interests and ensuing initiatives of international actors.
Horn of Africa is the most politically dynamic region in Africa; it has been a natural playground
for players inside and outside Africa, besides one of the world's most vital shipping lanes. The
mix of poor governance, mutual destabilization, and external interventions are the combustible
ingredients of the region always hovering on the edges of insecurity. The region brushed

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multiple frontlines for the last four decades; Outsiders were playing proxy politics within the
area. Uncertainty and insecurity, extremism and radicalization, poverty and inter-state and intra-
state conflict become accepted.
Regional insecurities have also had wider global resonance, attracting international actors,
institutions, and resources. Since the turn of the new century, man-made conflicts and natural
disasters, such as droughts and floods, have tasked the energies of the international community.
International engagement will continue because new security threats such as terrorism and piracy
have emerged, exploiting extant weaknesses in states and societies of the region. Resuscitating
structures that reduce the challenges to human livelihoods in eastern Africa will entail the return
to sturdy territorial order, national cohesion, economic viability, and the building of regional
institutions for security and prosperity.
The main challenges to human security in this region have originated from political and state
fragility, resource scarcities, and environmental degradation. All these factors have contributed
to a regional context that is characterized by intrastate conflicts, interstate wars, and political
extremism. Raging civil wars and interstate conflicts have, in turn, produced forms of
statelessness and marginality that have deepened societal insecurities and strained human
livelihoods. Consequently, in addition to profound political instability and economic destitution,
human security is arrayed against escalating communal violence, small arms proliferation, and
massive movements of people within and beyond the region. In the days of the East−West Cold
War, the region was one of the spaces within Africa where the superpowers fought proxy wars
which were always to the detriment of the peoples of their client-states and neighboring region
riddled with inter-state armed conflict, poverty, droughts, extremism and famine.
In the decade following the end of the cold war, the role of external security actors in the Horn
was largely focused on supporting internationally mandated peace operations and the
establishment of APSA. This involved financing, technical assistance, capacity building and
diplomacy that supported the engagement of international and regional multilateral operations.
This security paradigm continues today, notably in South Sudan and Somalia, but it no longer
constitutes the main mechanism for external security actors in the region
The emergence of crowded international security politics in the Horn of Africa raises the
prospect of proxy struggles, growing geopolitical tensions and a further extension of externally

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driven security agendas in the region. Horn countries could increasingly face the challenge of
being pressured to align with or join a particular security grouping.
A new security competition is underway in the Horn of Africa involving the Gulf States, Turkey,
and Iran, as well as China, Russia and the United States. The strategic situation should be
understood as an extension of two Middle Eastern power struggles. The Saudi/Iranian conflict,
on the one hand, and the intra-Gulf quarrel (pitting Saudi Arabia and UAE against Qatar and
Turkey), on the other, are playing out across the Red Sea, as Gulf states have come to see the
Somali coastline as their “western security flank.” These two struggles - driven by security
considerations and commercial interests - and aggravated by the global warming and food and
water insecurity - have prompted a political realignment in Africa, and spurred a wave of
investment in ports, bases and infrastructure in Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti and Eritrea.
The security competition in the Horn is also unfolding against the backdrop of China’s expansion
into Africa, and two ongoing democratic experiments in Ethiopia and Sudan. The increased
security presence of Middle Eastern and Gulf states in the Horn of Africa has taken place for a
number of reasons, including food security, commerce and trade, and foreign and security policy.
The growing role of these states in the region has nevertheless brought some economic and
security benefits.
The new external security politics of the Horn of Africa have emerged gradually over the past
three decades. Today, four distinct external security engagements overlap and interlink
simultaneously in the region, creating a complex and increasingly unstable environment: support
for African regional and international multilateral actions; efforts to combat non-traditional
security threats; the expansion of the Gulf and Middle Eastern security space into the Horn; and
the integration of the Horn region into Indo-Pacific security dynamics. The external security
engagement is also continually evolving, reflecting the diversity of actors and shifting security
interests.
After two decades where the main focus of external security engagement was on non-traditional
security threats and the internal conflicts of the Horn, underpinned by internationally sanctioned and
multinational mechanisms, the Horn is now becoming a venue for the spillover of external competition.
Increasingly the region’s internal security challenges are being overlain by strategic competition
between leading international security actors from the Middle East and the Gulf, and the Indo-Pacific
region.

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The UNDP Report (1994) identifies human security to involve two main components; these have
been broadened into seven main areas, out of seven four components include below
Climate insecurity
Climate-related security risks are increasingly transforming the security landscape in the Horn of
Africa, with climate impacts directly and indirectly affecting the security of communities, and
increasingly states and their international relations. The social and political contexts remain
crucial in determining how climate impacts affect security. However, the academic community
and policymakers are increasingly acknowledging the impacts of the environment, natural
resources and climate change on the region’s conflict and security landscapes, and ‘Disputes
over who owns, controls or benefits from natural resources occur frequently’.
Over 25.3 million people are already facing Crisis levels of food insecurity in Ethiopia, Kenya,
Somalia, South Sudan and the Sudan. Over 11 million of those, in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and
the Sudan are located in areas currently affected by the desert locust infestation. A further
2.76 million people in South Sudan and 120 000 people in Uganda are under threat from
expanding swarms.
One study of Ethiopian agro-ecological zones indicates that the impact on agriculture will be a
reduction in farm net revenue by 2050 and 2100, although the pattern is uneven across the zones.
Other studies predict that increased drought conditions, especially in the pastoralist regions
which constitute some 70% of the land area of the Horn, will intensify pressure on grazing and
water resources. This will then add to existing changes in the nature of intra-pastoralist conflict,
such as the availability of small arms and erosion of traditional modes of conflict resolution, to
increase the likelihood of future conflicts, with the threat of spillover into the wider region and
across neighboring borders,
Food insecurity
The Horn of Africa is one of the most food-insecure regions of the world. In the seven countries
of the region one that are members of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD),
out of a total population of almost 160 million, some 70 million people (around 45 percent) live
in areas that have been subject to extreme food shortages and the risk of famine at least once
every decade over the past 30 years.

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Around 12 million people were suffering from starvation in the Horn of Africa (Somalia,
Ethiopia, northeastern Kenya), stricken by the worst drought in the past 60 years, announced the
FAO on July 12, 2011.
While the majority of the food-insecure live in rural areas, food insecurity is also emerging as a
growing urban phenomenon in the major cities of the region. Social services are often minimal
with high death rates from preventable diseases. There is a high incidence of single-parent
families, and poverty and hunger drive social problems such as street children, prostitution, child
workers, substance abuse, crime and violence. Although it is often difficult to obtain precise
estimates of the numbers involved, it has been estimated that more than 50 percent of the
population of Nairobi (2 million people) is food-insecure, while the 2 to 3 million long-term
displaced people in and around Khartoum are in constant need of food aid, and there are similar
numbers of urban poor in Addis Ababa.
The impact of famine and food insecurity can be looked at from both the humanitarian and the
economic standpoints. It results in many human beings having shortened life spans and living in
a state of life- and health-threatening deprivation, constantly on the brink of disaster. The
economic growth of the countries of the region is also being seriously constrained because large
proportions of their populations are unable to contribute their full potential to economic activities
as a result of the cognitive and physical disabilities resulting from chronic under nutrition. When
famines occur, they contribute to a massive depletion of natural assets (especially livestock) and
divert resources away from potentially more productive uses.
In the Greater Horn of Africa, the upsurge comes as an exacerbating factor to food insecurity.
Indeed, the East and Horn of Africa region is already home to some of the most food insecure
populations in the world. Now, with countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia currently
facing one of the worst desert locust infestations in decades, coupled with the impacts of
COVID-19, experts fear that the health crisis will transform into a food crisis unless global,
regional and country level coordinated action is in place to control the economic crisis.
Economy insecurity
In the Horn of Africa, as elsewhere, economic drivers do not always manifest themselves directly
but are often concealed in the politics of nationalism, of religious ideology, or of struggles
between elites. Disagreements over territorial integrity, cultural nationalism and internal

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factionalism all have economic elements that either fuel the conflict or are critical to its outcome,
and that are thereby in a continual process of adaptation and reformulation.
Political insecurity
The political history of the Horn of Africa is characterized by armed conflicts, state violence,
political repression, and protracted socio-political conflicts. Countries of the Horn sub-region pay
great attention to resolving the political challenges. Leaders of the region have experience at
handling the political marketplace through harnessing disturbances and unstable issues of the
region. Sometimes, their political strategies take advantages of these situations to their interests.
Conclusion
The Horn of Africa is the most dangerous region in Africa where interstate and intrastate
conflicts are typical, as well as famine and droughts compounded with economic downturns,
have been rampant for the last four to five decades. Regional fragility and security dynamics
clearly point to the need for cross-boundary or transnational approaches based on a thorough
understanding of the interconnectedness of the problems in the region. The main challenges to
human security in this region have originated from political and state fragility, resource
scarcities, and environmental degradation. All these factors have contributed to a regional
context that is characterized by intrastate conflicts, interstate wars, and political extremism. In
the Greater Horn of Africa, the upsurge comes as an exacerbating factor to food insecurity.
Indeed, the East and Horn of Africa region is already home to some of the most food insecure
populations in the world.

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