PROJECT STATUS: From 2000 until 2006 - closed

Security Sector Reform in South Eastern Europe:

An Inventory of Initiatives

This is the official website of Security Sector Reform in South Eastern Europe: An Inventory of Initiatives, a research project being carried out by The Centre for International and Security Studies (YCISS) at York University on behalf of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe (Working Table III on Security Issues).The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has provided funding for this project.

The main objective of this project is to encourage transparency and information-sharing in security sector reform, and to provide an accessible decision-making tool for those countries and international organizations involved in this process. It aims to encourage better and more focused approaches to security sector reform, both by providing an inventory of ongoing or recently-completed initiatives and byidentifying gaps and overlaps in international engagement in the region.  Ideally, these tools will facilitate the work of decision-makers in developing future initiatives that are more focused, and ultimately, more effective.

More specifically, the project involves the development and maintenance of a database of security sector reform initiatives undertaken by international actors in the primary target countries of the Stability Pact.   This is a 'living inventory', currently containing information on roughly 800 initiatives in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, and Serbia and Montenegro. Initiatives being undertaken under the auspices of the Stability Pact are included, as well as those which are not specifically endorsed or supported by the Pact.  This site also includes a preliminary analysis of international involvement in security sector reform within the region.

Individual initiatives within the database are categorized under the following sectors:

• Military and Paramilitary Forces
• Non Proliferation, Arms Control and Disarmament
• Small Arms and Light Weapons
• Management and Oversight
• Border Guards
• Police Reform
• Customs Services
• Intelligence Services
• Judicial Systems
• Penal Systems
• Anti-Corruption
• Trafficking in Human Beings
• Organized Crime
• Early Warning and Conflict Management
• Disaster Preparedness and Prevention
• General

The database is searchable by the above sector categories, by country, by project title, by activity type, and by donor or implementing organization and organization type.

We strongly encourage your input in the development of this project. While we have attempted to ensure that the database and the individual entries are as comprehensive and as accurate as possible, it remains a work in progress.  User feedback – both in terms of updates to initiatives currently included in the database and information on new or ongoing initiatives not currently in the database – will be vital to ensuring that the database contains as complete a picture as possible of the state of international involvement in security sector reform in South Eastern Europe.  This involvement, of course, is not limited to international organizations, and we welcome input on bilateral initiatives as well as on projects undertaken or supported by international non-governmental organizations.

As of February 2003, the official name of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was changed to Serbia and Montenegro.  For the sake of consistency, all references within the database to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia will be changed to reflect the state’s new official name.  Because of its special administrative status, projects taking place within UN-administered Kosovo will continue to be classified separately.

Preliminary Gaps Analysis

Overview

The analysis which follows is a preliminary assessment of the state of security sector reform in the main target countries of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, focusing specifically on initiatives financed or implemented by international actors. For the purposes of this project, international actors include international organizations (such as the UN or the OSCE), international non-governmental organizations (such as the Open Society Institute), or bilateral actors (such as the Government of the Netherlands or USAID). The analysis combines both a quantitative analysis of the contents of the security sector reform database that has been compiled as part of this project, and a qualitative analysis based on information gathered over the course of five months of data collection and interactions with relevant contact people and organizations active in security sector reform in the region. Given the fact that the database (which currently contains 401 records) is still a work in progress, and does not yet contain a complete collection of security sector reform initiatives in the region, conclusions drawn on the basis of the information contained within the database should be taken as indicative, rather than definitive.

The analysis will focus primarily on the regional level, with country specific information incorporated where appropriate. It will begin by looking at general trends and macro-level gaps, then continue with a sector by sector examination of particular areas of the security sector reform agenda.

General Conclusions

One of the most striking conclusions to be drawn from this project is the overall lack of coordination among international actors within the area of security sector reform. At the regional level, this gap is beginning to be filled by the Stability Pact on a sector by sector basis through such initiatives as the Stability Pact Task Force on Trafficking in Human Beings and the Regional Implementation Plan on Small Arms and Light Weapons Proliferation. As well, other regional initiatives, such as the Southeast European Cooperative Initiative’s Regional Center for Combating Transborder Crime, are also beginning to come to terms with the problem of regional coordination within particular areas of the security sector.

Perhaps more problematic, however, is the lack of coordination among international led initiatives within particular target states. Even within the same sector, international actors often appear to be only marginally aware of other international initiatives. Even where information sharing does take place, it rarely extends to the level of coordination, and in some cases there is rather a degree of competition among international actors, stemming from varying reform models and approaches. Similarly, the host countries themselves seem to have not yet taken the lead in actively coordinating international assistance in the security sector reform area. The ultimate result (lamented by donors and recipients alike) is that international resources devoted to security sector reform are not used as efficiently or as effectively as possible. While most international actors seem to be aware of this issue, different institutional priorities and the reluctance of individual organizations to be coordinated tends to prevent real progress towards more coherent and complementary international interventions in particular areas within individual countries.

Along similar lines, there also appears to be a need for greater coordination and linkage across specific sectors of the security sector reform agenda (more coordination across Working Tables might also be called for in specific instances). While most of the functional bodies of the Stability Pact’s Working Table III are organized along sectoral lines (anti-trafficking, small arms and light weapons, border guarding, organized crime, etc.), there is a great deal of overlap across sectors in terms of the nature of the challenges being addressed. For example, success in tackling organized crime on a region-wide level will inevitably depend to a large degree on the success of initiatives aimed at strengthening border guarding capacities. Some collaboration across sectors clearly exists already (a division of labor appears to be evolving across the trafficking in humans/organized crime sectors, for example, in which the Regional Center for Combating Transborder Crime deals with the criminal side of trafficking, while the Stability Pact Task Force on Trafficking in Human Beings focuses more on the victims of trafficking), but it also seems clear that more work could be done in this area. While the Stability Pact is the obvious forum for this type of coordination at the regional level, within specific countries there appear to exist, at present, few appropriate mechanisms through which this cross-sectoral coordination of international effort could be achieved.

At the level of the individual target countries of the Stability Pact, one possible key macro-level gap relates to weaknesses within the public administrations of most of the target countries. Much of the criticism of target country public administrations, of course, comes from international actors, and one would expect the governments of the region to be somewhat sensitive to this type of criticism. Nevertheless, there are clear cases in which progress on security sector reform has been hampered by ongoing public administration problems. In Croatia, for example, the recent tendency has been for international actors active in the judicial reform sector to avoid working directly with the Croatian Ministry of Justice, given ongoing political and administrative problems within the ministry. Similar problems exist in Albania, where organizational and structural problems within various ministries (including the Ministry of Justice) have hampered not only reform in general but also the implementation of particular projects.

This issue also has clear implications for follow through and sustainability of security sector reform projects. In the area of legislative reform, for example, many projects end at the point where legislation is adopted, with little effort expended to ensure that legislation is actually implemented. This gap between adoption and implementation/enforcement of security sector reforms, which is often exacerbated by weaknesses both in public administrations and in the ability of local civil society to monitor reforms, could also be considered to be a real gap in terms of the security sector reform agenda.

Similar issues were also identified with regard to international training initiatives. There is a plethora of such initiatives in the security sector, many of which are short term in nature, and in general it appears that little concrete follow up is done in order to assess the impact or effectiveness of such training, or the degree to which they contribute to broader security sector reform goals. One expert, for example, suggested that more could be done to ensure that skills and knowledge gained by individuals participating in training courses was more effectively disseminated through that individual’s home institution.

More concretely in terms of gaps analysis, it appears that much more could be done by international actors in terms of supporting an active role for local civil society actors in security sector reform. A preliminary analysis of the database indicates that a relatively small proportion of international initiatives in the security sector (14 projects in total identified to date) are aimed specifically at increasing the capacity of local civil society actors to play a role – either as interlocutors or as watchdogs – in the process of security sector reform. In some areas, notably police reform and military reform, very few international initiatives seek to develop local civil society capacities to either contribute to, or monitor the effectiveness of, reform processes.

Beyond these general considerations, of course, real and significant differences exist among the countries (and territories) of the region in terms of capacities in, and progress on, security sector reform. For example, security sector reform is only now coming onto the agenda of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, with much of the international community having spent most of the past 18 months re establishing and re orienting itself in the aftermath of the country’s October 2000 revolution. Kosovo remains a particularly difficult security sector reform challenge, and the slow pace of reforms in this territory, particularly in areas such as organized crime and small arms and light weapons, are often cited as hampering the overall progress of security sector reform in the region. Similarly, progress towards security sector reform in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia has been largely on hold since the recent flare up of ethnic conflict in that country, and is only now starting to get back on track. On the other hand, Bulgaria, Romania, and Croatia have all made significant progress in security sector reforms over the past few years, and are in many aspects far ahead of their regional neighbors. The best regional initiatives, therefore, will be those which not only focus on the common challenges facing the region and its individual countries, but which also recognize and take into account the wide variations between countries.

Sector-Specific Analysis

The remainder of this report will consider the state of security sector reform in South Eastern Europe on a sector by sector basis. The sectors discussed, which correspond to the sector categories utilized in the database, include:

• Military and Paramilitary Forces
• Management and Oversight
• Border Guards
• Police Reform
• Customs Services
• Intelligence Services
• Judicial Systems
• Penal Systems
• Non-Proliferation, Arms Control and Disarmament
• Anti-Corruption
• Trafficking in Humans
• Organized Crime
• Early Warning and Conflict Management

Military and Paramilitary Forces

The one common denominator among all the countries of the region in the area of military reform is the desire of each country to eventually join NATO. Despite major variations among countries in terms of progress towards NATO membership – countries such as Romania and Bulgaria may join NATO as early as this year, while the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Bosnia-Herzegovina are not yet full members of NATO’s Partnership for Peace – the prospect and appeal of NATO membership acts as a reform roadmap for each country of the region. Clearly, then, NATO is the key international player in terms of military reform, at least in the sense of formal force restructuring. While many other international actors are involved in this area, notably in the area of military training, most of these activities could be considered to be complementary with NATO efforts rather than cases of project overlap.

In terms of potential gaps in this area, undoubtedly one of the needs common to virtually all states of the region is demobilization and re-integration of military personnel, and at the moment there are clearly more needs than projects. To date, NATO and the World Bank have been active in Bulgaria, Romania, and Bosnia-Herzegovina with projects aimed at re-training demobilized military forces and reintegrating them into civilian life, while the IOM has been active in re-training demobilized fighters of the Kosovo Liberation Army. In the coming months and years, however, virtually all the countries of the region will be going through a significant downsizing of their military forces, and there is already a pressing need for international support in this area. While NATO, the World Bank and the IOM, given their experience in past and ongoing projects in this field, are likely to be involved in future projects, there is still a question of whether these organizations can fully match resources to needs.

At the same time, the conversion of military bases for civilian use is also likely to be a key need as militaries across the region downsize. While NATO is involved in pilot projects in Bulgaria and Romania, there is undoubtedly room for other actors, particularly since this is an issue that clearly overlaps with Working Table II on Economic Reconstruction and Development.

Management and Oversight

In the area of civilian management and oversight of military affairs, key international actors include the DCAF, NATO (through its Partnership Work Programme), the Centre for European Security Studies at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, and the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies. Given the relatively narrow scope of this particular sector (many of the activities focus specifically on issues of democratic control of the armed forces), and the number of activities underway (while the database includes 15 different initiatives in this area, the Partnership Work Programme initiative on democratic control alone includes some 38 different activities), it seems probable that there will be some elements of overlap across the different programs.

At the same time, much of the work in this area consists of seminars, workshops, and training sessions, suggesting space for ongoing work directly with parliamentary or other oversight bodies within specific target countries. Within Bosnia-Herzegovina, for example, the OSCE Mission works closely with parliamentary defense committees on an ongoing basis to continuously upgrade military oversight and management skills. Such ongoing relationships between international actors and oversight bodies could usefully be replicated elsewhere in the region.

Border Guards

The key player in the region in the area of border guarding and border management is the EU. In the same way that NATO provides the roadmap for the region in terms of military reform, the goal of eventual EU membership provides all the countries with concrete incentives to re organize their own border management structures in line with European standards. Through its Phare program (recently replaced by CARDS in the Western Balkans) as well as through the Tacis program in Moldova, the EU has committed considerable resources to border guarding issues in recent years, particularly in the areas of administrative reorganization (through twinning arrangements) and infrastructure support (both provision of equipment and rehabilitation of facilities). Similarly, the World Bank’s Trade and Transport Facilitation in South East Europe project is also providing support for the improvement of border infrastructure.

If there are significant gaps in international initiatives related to border guarding, therefore, these gaps may lie more in the area of border personnel training (indeed, relatively few border guard training initiatives have been identified for inclusion in the database). A recent analysis by the International Centre for Migration Policy Development indicates that border guard training is an issue in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina (particularly since that country’s State Border Service is still in its infancy), Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (where a new border service is being established), and in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. While some issue specific training initiatives for border guards already exist, there may also be more room for training initiatives for border guards in the area of counter-trafficking (in drugs, in human beings, and in weapons).

Similarly, given the nature of the issue, and the importance of effective border control in managing other regional challenges such as trafficking in humans, organized crime, and illegal weapons and drug trafficking, enhancing regional and cross-border cooperation in this area will also be essential. The Regional Center for Combating Transborder Crime in Bucharest is an important initiative in this area, as are the SEESTAFF initiative of the SEEGROUP on the exchange of border personnel, and the recently established Stability Pact Task Force for the Co-operation and Development of Border Management. Given the magnitude of the challenges in this area, however, there is likely to be considerable scope for additional international activity in specific areas, such as the development of regional criminal intelligence capacity (possible in support of, or supplementing, the Regional Centre for Combating Transborder Crime’s efforts to establish an Intelligence Department by 2003).

Police Reform

Given the large number of police reform activities within the South Eastern Europe (56 of the 401 project entries in the database relate to police reform, with many more activities in existence that have yet to be catalogued), as well as the sheer number of actors involved, identifying gaps in coverage with any confidence in this sector is a difficult task. Nevertheless, it is possible to identify a number of areas where greater international involvement in the policing field could yield dividends:

• While a number of discrete initiatives address institutional and training needs vis-à-vis particular policing tasks, given the extent of the problems faced by the region in the areas of corruption, organized crime, and trafficking in humans, drugs, and illegal weapons, there appears to be a significant need to improve local police capacity to tackle these specific issues. Additional initiatives in these areas could take the form of institutional restructuring (the creation or strengthening of specialized units, for example) and/or specialized police training. Such initiatives could only enhance the work of regional efforts on these fronts.

• Initiatives aimed at increasing transparency and accountability within individual police forces could also contribute to combating corruption, as could initiatives that contributed to the goal of providing police officers with wages sufficient to make them less susceptible to bribery or other forms of corruption.

• While initiatives in the areas of community policing (or democratic policing) exist in some of the countries of the region, such initiatives could easily be expanded in other countries as basic structural reforms to the policing institutions are completed. Given ongoing ethnic tensions within the region, more emphasis could also be placed on multiethnic policing or on policing the rights of minorities.

• De-militarizing police forces, particularly in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (but also to a certain extent in Romania), also remains an issue on which greater international attention could be focused.

Customs Services

Within the area of customs reform, there are two major international players in South Eastern Europe: the European Union and the World Bank. Through Phare, Tacis (Moldova only), and now CARDS (in the Western Balkans), the EU is investing considerable resources towards customs reform in the region in the areas of legislative and administrative reform, technical and infrastructure upgrading, and personnel training. As part of this effort, the EU funds and operates Customs Assistance Missions in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo, Croatia, and is also about to begin providing customs assistance teams to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro).

At the same time, the World Bank is also in the process of implementing its TTFSE project in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Romania (projects in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Moldova are not yet operational). This project seeks, in part through customs reform, to reduce non-tariff cost to trade and transport, and to reduce smuggling and corruption at border crossings. This project has been developed in collaboration with the European Union, so any overlap between this project and EU efforts will likely be limited.

Given the extensive coverage of customs reform by both the EU and the World Bank – which at least on paper appear to cover most of the key issues with respect to customs reform – there appear to be no obvious gaps in this sector.

Intelligence Services

The reform of intelligence services may be one significant gap within international efforts at security sector reform in South Eastern Europe. As the information in the database indicates, we have to date identified no international projects aimed specifically at the reform of national intelligence services. We have, however, encountered vague references to some activities in this sector, for example with respect to the merging of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s ethnically divided services into a single statewide service. Similarly, there are activities around the development of criminal intelligence capacities, although this generally related more to police reform than the reform of national intelligence services per se. This gap, of course, may have more to do with the nature of the sector than with an absence of projects, or it may stem from the fact that governments within the region are sensitive about international involvement in their national intelligence agencies. Clearly, more research is required in this area to determine the precise extent of international involvement in the reform of intelligence services, since various sources in the region identified unreformed intelligence agencies as an issue of concern. In addition to the potential importance of intelligence services in the fight against organized crime, this issue also has more resonance post-September 11, since intelligence gathering and the sharing of intelligence on a regional level vis-à-vis terrorist activities will undoubtedly be given higher priority. When interviewed in Sofia, Bulgaria’s Stability Pact Coordinator, Ambassador Philipov, made reference to an upcoming regional meeting (9 June 2002) on the issue of intelligence services. This meeting could potentially shed more light on activities and gaps in this sector.

Judicial Systems

There is a great deal of international activity in the area of judicial reform in South Eastern Europe (fully one in four entries in the database is related to judicial reform), yet this is also a sector where much work remains to be done. Given the number and variety of actors involved in this sector, and the lack of overall coordination, there is undoubtedly considerable overlap in this sector. A number of sources, for example, noted that in Albania there is some overlap (and likely considerable confusion) between initiatives based on American models of judicial reform and those based on European models. Based on interviews and meetings with various international actors involved in judicial reform in the region, in most countries the judicial sector remains one of the weakest links in the entire security sector. Many of the problems are connected to the following issues:

• Administrative problems within Justice Departments – While administrative reorganization has been a priority of many judicial reform projects, in many countries (notably Croatia, Albania, and Bosnia-Herzegovina), dysfunctional state Justice Departments act as a brake on the reform process.

• Court administration – Region-wide problems still persist in this area. In the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, for example, average case processing time is three years, while one expert described Albania’s court administration system as a “disaster.” Responses to these problems on the part of international actors include projects designed to improve administrative processes, initiatives aimed at computerizing court processes (many of these initiatives remain at the pilot stage), and projects aimed at instituting alternative dispute resolution mechanisms into judicial systems (in order to reduce case pressure on courts).

• Competence/corruption/politicization of the judiciary – Numerous projects have been implemented aimed at increasing the competence of members of the judiciary (largely through direct judicial training programs and through support for indigenous training institutes) and at enhancing judicial independence throughout the region, yet these issues continue to persist in many countries of the region.

• Enforcement of judgements – While relatively few projects focus directly in the enforcement of judicial judgements, the Stability Pact’s own Framework Document for Judicial Reform in South Eastern Europe points to this issue as a “grey zone” where the administration of justice often fails.

• Access to legal materials – Particularly in the poorer countries of the region (notably Albania), access to legal materials remains a problem. While a few projects exist in individual countries aimed at increasing the availability of legal documentation for judges and prosecutors (from legal journals to texts of judicial decisions), more resources could be usefully invested in this area.

Penal Systems

With only 13 projects identified in the database with a specific focus on penal reform, this is another area where more international resources could usefully be devoted. According to interviews with sources in the region, in Bosnia-Herzegovina issues of penal reform have hardly been addressed at all, despite the fact that overcrowding and corruption are major problems. Similarly in Kosovo, where the UN currently operates the penal system, issues of overcrowding and lack of prison space have become critical (prompting significant recent donor contributions to the construction and rehabilitation of prisons).

On training of penal staff, while projects do exist in Bulgaria, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia), Romania, and at a regional level (through a joint OSCE/Council of Europe project), the bulk of these initiatives are either pilot projects or involve relatively small budgets, suggesting that there exists more space for penal staff training both at the level of individual countries and at a regional level. Similarly, only a few projects exist in areas such as alternative sentencing, re-integration of released prisoners, or the development of probation programs or services; each of these areas might benefit from greater international involvement.

Non-Proliferation, Arms Control and Disarmament

In the area of military-level arms control and non-proliferation activities, the main international actors in South Eastern Europe include RACVIAC, NATO, and the OSCE (both through the OSCE Mission in Bosnia and through the Chairman-in-Office’s Personal Representative for Articles II and IV of the Dayton Peace Accords). Each organization is involved at various levels in regional arms control and confidence-building activities, and there is clearly some overlap between the work of the various bodies. RACVIAC in particular seems to be searching for its own particular niche in this field.

At the level of SALW, this is an area that has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years. Gaps in a regional-level approach to the problem of small arms and light weapons proliferation appear to be in the process of being filled by the Stability Pact’s Regional Implementation Plan for Combating the Proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons, as well as by the establishment of the Regional Clearinghouse for Small Arms and Light Weapons in Belgrade. Elsewhere, progress towards the destruction of landmine stockpiles is well advanced, at least partly on the initiative of the Government of Canada. Arms collection and destruction projects, particularly in Albania, but also in Bulgaria, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, have also made significant strides in reducing the number of illicit weapons in circulation.

While the projects identified in the database reflect only a portion of the overall number of projects in the area of SALW, the range of projects that have been identified does indicate that more could be done in many of the areas of regional or cross-border cooperation identified in the Regional Implementation Plan, including:

• promotion and development of local, national, and regional arrangements for cooperation in preventing illicit weapons trafficking;

• enhancing institutional capability to detect and interdict illicit flows of arms across regional boundaries and borders;

• adoption of practical control measures at national and regional levels, such as strengthened police and customs cooperation; and

• development and implementation of regional public awareness and confidence-building programs related to SALW proliferation.

Anti-Corruption

Identifying gaps and overlaps within the area of anti-corruption is difficult given the amorphous nature of this category. One challenge lies in separating good governance and transparency initiatives from more formal anti-corruption activities, since excluding the former types of initiatives risks ignoring many activities which indirectly contribute to the fight against corruption by encouraging open and transparent government. For example, the absence of effective freedom of information legislation may be considered a significant gap in efforts to combat corruption, yet such activities have been excluded from the database. Similarly, efforts to promote effective investigative journalism within individual countries have not been considered to fall within our working definition of security sector reform, even though such initiatives may have important impacts on corruption.

Despite this, it is possible to point to certain areas where gaps potentially exist. Of 51 anti-corruption projects identified in the database, seven are focused on support for civil society. Of these, four are relatively minor projects, suggesting that there may be more space for international efforts to support local civil society anti-corruption activities. This conclusion has been corroborated by conversations with individuals involved in anti-corruption efforts in specific countries. One possible exception to this is Bulgaria, where civil society groups have been able to secure funding for major anti-corruption activities. As well, it should also be noted that the database does not yet contain complete information on activities of local branches of TI, a significant civil society actor in the anti-corruption field. Still, many domestic TI branches (notably in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Moldova, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) have been founded only recently, and are only beginning to establish themselves as major players in the anti-corruption field. In Albania – which has one of the region’s most serious corruption problems – no TI chapter exists.

At the same time, the database currently contains no more than six projects focused on public awareness activities in the area of anti-corruption. This is, therefore, another area where a possible gap exists, particularly when one considers the comparably high number of public information/awareness initiatives that exist in the area of trafficking in humans, and the potential impact that heightened public awareness could have in reducing public tolerance and acceptance of corruption.

At the level of administrative and legislative reform, it seems generally the case that while most governments, with international support and advice, are making substantial progress towards adopting legislative reforms and national plans of action against corruption, the real challenge lies in implementation (this conclusion is of course difficult to verify quantitatively through analysis of the database, but draws more on impressions from interviews with different interlocutors in the region). Finding ways to support the efforts of the countries of the region to effectively implement and enforce anti-corruption strategies and legislation may, therefore, be an additional critical international contribution to combating corruption across the region.

Finally, Kosovo appears to present a significant geographical gap in terms of a regional approach to addressing corruption. There exists, for example, no projects yet in implementation in Kosovo under the umbrella of the SPAI, and more generally anti-corruption seems not to be at the top of the international community’s priority list in Kosovo.

Trafficking in Humans

Trafficking in humans is undoubtedly one of the hottest issues on the security sector reform agenda in South Eastern Europe, with many projects currently in implementation and with, reportedly, significant donor interest in funding additional projects. Key implementing agencies in this area include the IOM (particularly on victim protection and reintegration issues), both the OSCE field missions and the OSCE/ODIHR, UNICEF, UNHCR, and the ICMPD. While there are a growing number of international actors in this field, coordination issues (at least at a regional level) appear to be adequately addressed through the Stability Pact Task Force on Trafficking in Human Beings. At national levels, in Montenegro the government and the key international actors in this sector have collaborated on a comprehensive 2001/2002 program for victim protection. Issues of overlap in the trafficking in humans sector, however, may be more of an issue in other parts of the region where efforts appear to be less closely coordinated.

Based on a preliminary review of the database, much of the international activity in the region (more than half of all projects entered into the database) is focused on victim assistance and public education/information. While this conclusion may be at least partly due to the high visibility of the IOM (which lays particular emphasis of these two elements in its activities), it might also indicate that there exists a potential gap in terms of addressing issues of enforcement or prosecution of traffickers. While the Council of Europe has been actively engaged in the area of legislative reform, relatively few projects address specifically the question of tackling the broader trafficking networks and bringing traffickers to justice. Clearly, this is an area where cross-sectoral cooperation is needed, since progress would inevitably require collaboration among police services, border guards, judicial systems, and linkages with broader anti-organized crime initiatives. This is one area into which the Regional Center for Combating Transborder Crime is becoming increasingly active, but other international initiatives could also be useful.

Another gap in this sector relates to the underlying structural issues which help generate and sustain trafficking activities – in particular the dire economic circumstances which make individuals susceptible to falling victim to traffickers – although this is clearly an area of significant overlap with the activities of Working Table II.

Organized Crime

As with anti-corruption, organized crime is another area in which it is difficult to conclusively point to gaps in international involvement by reference to the database, in part due to the fact that many activities in the area of police reform, border guards, or judicial systems may in fact contain anti-organized crime elements which are not always reflected in project descriptions. Nevertheless, both the quantitative data and qualitative information gleaned from sources within the region do indicate possible gaps. The first set of gaps relates to particular types of organized criminal activity. Money laundering was identified by a number of sources as a significant problem in need of attention. While the Council of Europe runs a number of programs at the regional level in this area, more sustained international effort within individual countries (especially in the states of the former Yugoslavia and Albania) might be justified. Similarly, in Bulgaria and Romania cigarette smuggling was identified as a problem that has not yet been addressed, with one contact reporting that 90 per cent of foreign cigarettes enter Bulgaria illegally. Likewise, our research identified only three initiatives related specifically to drug smuggling. While clearly this does not represent the entirety of international initiatives in this area, it might indicate the existence of a gap.

At the same time, over the course of field research for this project, the establishment of witness protection programs was frequently mentioned by regional interlocutors as a pressing need, particularly in relation to the prosecution of organized crime. Only five projects identified in the database focus specifically on supporting witness protection activities, and this may also be an area where more international support is warranted.

Geographically, Kosovo was again identified on a number of occasions as a ‘black hole’ in terms of international efforts to combat organized crime. As yet, Kosovo hosts no projects under the banner of the SPAI, and while the UN Mission in Kosovo established a Kosovo Organized Crime Bureau in the autumn of 2001, this office is not yet fully operational, and lacks a proper legislative framework in which to operate. Similarly, the UN Mission in Kosovo’s Economic Crime Unit is also still in its infancy.

Early Warning and Conflict Management

The core activities identified within this sector are the efforts of UNDP to establish national early warning systems in most of the target countries of the Stability Pact (specifically Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia), the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Romania). Efforts are also underway to establish a similar system in Albania, as well as a region-wide early warning system. The main goal of these initiatives is to provide national decision-makers with key socio-economic information designed to help them foresee and avert potential crises. The records of the existing systems are somewhat uneven, with UNDP offices in Romania and Serbia reporting relative success in reaching decision-makers, while a parallel program in Bulgaria is being revised in order to make it a more attractive tool for policy makers.

Beyond this specific set of activities, identifying regional gaps in the area of early warning and conflict prevention remains a challenge. While early warning refers to a relatively specific category of activity, conflict prevention is much more difficult to define precisely, and potentially encompasses everything from regional diplomatic initiatives to grassroots civil society activities aimed at defusing community-level tensions. Overall, our research identified only one project categorized as conflict prevention per se, indicating either a potential gap or, more likely, that further investigation needs to be done in this area before reliable conclusions can be drawn.

Documents:

There is a growing literature on questions of security sector reform (SSR), as well as on the specifics of the reform process in South Eastern Europe.  This page includes selected links to documents on SSR generally, and on specific aspects of SSR as they apply to South Eastern Europeand its individual states. 

• Caparini, Marina. “Security Sector Reform and Post-Conflict Stabilization,” in A. Bryden and H. Hanggi, Reform and Reconstruction of the Security Sector (Geneva: Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, 2004); http://www.dcaf.ch/publications/e-publications/SSR_yearbook2004/Chapter_7_Caparini.pdf
  
  
• Cole, Eden, Timothy Donais and Philipp Fluri (eds.), Defence and Security Sector Governance and Reform in South East Europe (Baden-Baden: Nomos Publishing, 2004); http://www.dcaf.ch/publications/SSG_regional.cfm?nav1=4&nav2=2
  
  
• Cooper, Neil and Michael Pugh. Security Sector Transformation in Post-Conflict Societies. Conflict, Security, and Development Group Working Paper No. 5, February 2002 http://csdg.kcl.ac.uk/Publications/assets/PDF%20files/Working%20paper%20number%205.pdf
  
  
• Fluri, Philipp, and Velizar Shalamanov (eds.), Security Sector Reform, Does it Work? Problems of Civil-Military and Inter-Agency Cooperation in the Security Sector (Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces/George C. Marshall Association Bulgaria, Geneva, 2003); http://www.isn.ethz.ch/dossiers/ssg/pubs/books5.cfm
  
  
• Hendrickson, Dylan.  A Review of Security Sector Reform. Conflict, Security, and Development Group Working Paper No. 1, September 1999  http://csdg.kcl.ac.uk/Publications/assets/PDF%20files/Working%20paper%20number%201.pdf
  
  
• Security Sector Reform in South East Europe (Summary of Conference held at the Wilton Park Conference Centre, UK, September 2001); http://www.wiltonpark.org.uk/web/conferences/reportwrapper.asp?confref=WPS01-14
  
  
• Southeastern Europe Clearinghouse for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SEESAC).   South Eastern EuropeSmall Arms and Light Weapons Monitor.  SEESAC, 2004; http://www.seesac.org/target/salw_monitor.htm
  
  
• Yusufi, Islam. Security Sector Reform in South East Europe, Centre for Policy Studies, Budapest, August 2004; http://www.policy.hu/yusufi/ContPolicyPaper.pdf
  
  

Links:

This page lists the websites of some of the primary organizations active in security sector reform activities in South Eastern Europe.  The first section lists the websites of the main regional and international actors, and the following sections list organizations active in specific countries of the region.

Regional:

American Bar Association Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative (ABA/CEELI) - http://www.abanet.org/ceeli/home.html

Association of European Police Colleges - http://www.aepc.net/

Centre for European Security Studies (University of Groningen) - http://odur.let.rug.nl/cess/

Council of Europe - http://www.coe.int

Economic Reconstruction and Development in South East Europe (European Commission/World Bank) - http://www.seerecon.org/

European Agency for Reconstruction - http://www.ear.eu.int/

European Union and Southeastern Europe -  http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/see/index.htm

Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of the Armed Forces – http://www.dcaf.ch

International Organization for Migration (IOM) - http://www.iom.int/

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) - http://www.nato.int/

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) – http://www.osce.org

Penal Reform International - http://www.penalreform.org/

Southeast European Cooperative Initiative (SECI) Regional Center for Combating Trans-border Crime - http://www.secicenter.org/html/index.htm

Southeastern Europe Clearinghouse for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SEESAC) - http://www.seesac.org/

Southeast European Legal Development Initiative (SELDI) - http://www.seldi.net/

Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe - http://www.stabilitypact.org/

Stability Pact Anti-Corruption Initiative - http://www1.oecd.org/daf/SPAIcom/index.htm

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) – http://www.undp.org

United States Department of Justice International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) - http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/icitap/

Albania

Albanian Institute for International Studies - http://www.aiis-albania.org/

Albanian Ministry of Defence - http://www.mod.gov.al/

Albanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs - http://www.mfa.gov.al/english/

Albanian Ministry of Public Order - http://www.mpo.gov.al/anglisht/mrp-ENGLISH.htm

European Commission Delegation to Albania - http://www.delalb.cec.eu.int/en/index.htm

Institute for Policy and Legal Studies (IPLS) - http://www.ipls.org/

Open Society Foundation Albania - http://www.soros.al/

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Presence in Albania - http://www.osce.org/albania/

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Albania - http://www.undp.org.al/

Bosnia-Herzegovina

Bosnia-Herzegovina Ministry of Foreign Affairs - http://www.mvp.gov.ba/

European Commission Delegation to Bosnia-Herzegovina - http://www.delbih.cec.eu.int/

European Union Police Mission (EUPM) - http://www.eupm.org/

NATO Stabilization Force (SFOR) - http://www.nato.int/sfor/

Office of the High Representative – http://www.ohr.int

Open Society Fund Bosnia and Herzegovina - http://www.soros.org.ba

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Mission to Bosnia-Herzegovina – http://www.oscebih.org

United Nations Development Programme Mission to Bosnia-Herzegovina - http://www.undp.ba

US Agency for International Development (USAID) Mission to Bosnia - http://www.usaid.ba/

World Bank Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina - http://www.worldbank.ba

Bulgaria

Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs - http://www.mfa.government.bg/

Centre for Liberal Strategies - http://www.cls-sofia.org/

Centre for the Study of Democracy - http://www.csd.bg/

European Commission Delegation to Bulgaria - http://www.evropa.bg

Institute for Regional and International Studies - http://www.iris-bg.org/

Open Society Institute Sofia - http://www.osf.bg/main.html

United Nations Development Programme in Bulgaria - http://www.undp.bg/

Croatia

Croatian Ministry of European Integration Foreign Assistance Projects - http://www.mei.hr/psp/default.asp?jezik=1

Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs - http://www.mvp.hr

European Commission Delegation to Croatia - http://www.delhrv.cec.eu.int/

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Mission to Croatia - http://www.osce.org/croatia/

Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia Ministry of Foreign Affairs - http://www.mfa.gov.mk/

Foundation Open Society Institute Macedonia - http://www.soros.org.mk/

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Spillover Monitor Mission to Skopje - http://www.osce.org/skopje/overview/

Transparency International Macedonia - http://www.transparency.org.mk/

United Nations Development Programme in Macedonia - http://www.undp.org.mk/

Kosovo/UNMIK

NATO Kosovo Force (KFOR) - http://www.nato.int/kfor/welcome.html

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Mission to Kosovo - http://www.osce.org/kosovo/

United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) - http://www.unmikonline.org/

United Nations Country Team in Kosovo - http://undg.ks.undp.org/

US Office Pristina - http://www.usofficepristina.usia.co.at/

Moldova

European Commission Delegation to Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus - http://www.delukr.cec.eu.int/

Institute for Public Policy - http://www.ipp.md/en.html

Moldovan Ministry of Foreign Affairs - http://www.mfa.md/En/

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Mission to Moldova - http://www.osce.org/moldova/

Soros Foundation Moldova - http://www.soros.md/en.html

Transparency International Moldova - http://www.transparency.md/index.htm

United Nations Office in Moldova - http://www.un.md/

Romania

Centre for Legal Resources - http://www.crj.ro/indexen.php

Information Centre of the European Commission in Romania - http://www.infoeuropa.ro/ieweb/jsp/page.jsp?cid=50&lid=2

International Organization for Migration in Romania - http://www.un.ro/iom.html

Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs - http://www.mae.ro/index.php?lang=en

Transparency International Romania - http://www.transparency.org.ro/english/

United Nations Development Programme in Romania - http://www.undp.ro/

Serbia and Montenegro

Centre for Civil-Military Relations Belgrade - http://www.ccmr-bg.org/

European Commission Delegation to Serbia and Montenegro - http://www.eudelyug.org/

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Mission to Serbia and Montenegro - http://www.osce.org/yugoslavia/

Serbia and Montenegro Ministry of Foreign Affairs - http://www.mfa.gov.yu/

United Nations Development Programme Serbia and Montenegro - http://www.undp.org.yu/

For further information,

please Contact:

Regional Cooperation Council