Security Sector Reform/Governance

USIP assesses the damage done by the devastating earthquake, and recommends strategies for Haiti’s recovery and reconstruction.

Bob Perito, director of USIP's Security Governance Center of Innovation, recently returned from Tunisia and Libya, where he met with police, military and government officials to examine the current status of the security sector in each country.

The uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa have been accompanied by horrific levels of violence, particularly in Libya, Yemen and Syria. Post-authoritarian transitions will require a focus not only on building the institutions needed to sustain democracies, but also a focus on the myriad issues associated with post-conflict reconstruction.Please join Ambassador William B. Taylor, special coordinator for Middle East Transitions at the U.S. Department of State and Ellen Laipson, President and CEO of the Stimson Center for the second in a series of breakfast briefings organized by the United States Institute of Peace in partnership with the Defense Education Forum of the Reserve Officers Association.

USIP experts provide a quick analysis on Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's announcement about the U.S. ending the combat mission earlier than expected.

Under Saddam Hussein, a complex web of intelligence and security institutions protected the regime and repressed the Iraqi people.  Underfunded and mismanaged, the Iraqi police were least among those institutions and unprepared to secure the streets when Coalition Forces arrived in 2003 and disbanded the rest of the security apparatus.  Iraq’s police forces have made important strides, and some 400,000 Iraqi police have been trained and stationed across the country.  However, with the U.S. drawdown in Iraq, the future of the Iraqi police and U.S. police assistance is uncertain.  On February 29, the United States Institute of Peace and the Institute for the Study of War will co-host a panel of distinguished experts who will discuss the history of the Iraqi police and the U.S. police assistance program in Iraq. 

USIP has been working to promote peace and stability in Afghanistan since 2002 through programs designed to improve understanding of peaceful dispute resolution, advance peace education in schools and communities, enhance dialogue between leading Afghans and the international community, and promote the rule of law. USIP established an office in Kabul in 2008. This on the ground presence has greatly increased USIP's contact with and understanding of events, programs, and attitudes in Afghanistan, and has strengthened its capacity to execute innovative and effective programs in the country.

USIP's Security Sector Governance (SSG) Center focuses on a critical element of sustainable peace: developing security forces and supervising institutions that are effective, legitimate, apolitical, and accountable to the citizens they are sworn to protect.

USIP hosted a panel of distinguished experts to discuss the various aspects of security - political, economic, personal and criminal - in Haiti.

USIP’s Robert Perito, director of the security sector governance center, files this dispatch from Libya.

Learn about the sources of ongoing conflict and possible emergence of new conflict in the two Sudans, including the issues of oil revenue, citizenship, debt, and border demarcation between the north and south.