The Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces has just released two volumes on gender and the security sector. The first, entitled The Security Sector and Gender in West Africa, provides complete profiles of the fourteen countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) along two lines of inquiry: do security 
SSR Blog
Monthly Archive
December | 2011
New DCAF Reports on Gender and SSR
By: Michael Lawrence | Wednesday, December 21st, 2011Examining the Afghanistan exit strategy
By: Geoff Burt | Wednesday, December 7th, 2011The three pillars of the international community’s exit strategy from Afghanistan–training the Afghan security forces, forging a regional strategy and coming to a political settlement with insurgent groups–are teetering, according to an editorial by the SSR Resource Centre’s Mark Sedra, Geoff Burt and Michael Lawrence. Despite massive investments in training, only one army unit is
“A Cautionary Tale: Plan Colombia’s Lessons for U.S. Policy Toward Mexico and Beyond”
By: Michael Lawrence | Friday, December 2nd, 2011As the drug war continues to expand southward, a growing number of countries (including Honduras, Guatemala and Ecuador) are following Mexico’s lead by deploying the military in an internal security role to directly confront the drug gangs. The D.E.A. even deploys commando-style squads to support counter-narcotics in Central America and the Caribbean. In addition to
