LINKING COMPLEX EMERGENCY RESPONSE AND TRANSITION INITIATIVE

 

 

 

 

 

Human Security in Angola:

A Retrospective Study

 

 

Elizabeth Stites, M.A., M.A.L.D.

Jennifer Leaning, M.D., S.M.H.

 

December 2002

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prepared for USAID (Africa Bureau)/Tulane CERTI

 

Harvard School of Public Health

 

Program on Humanitarian Crises

François Xavier-Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contents

 

Executive Summary                                                                                                     3

Part I: Human Security in Angola                                                                               5

Part II: Home                                                                                                             16

Part III: Community                                                                                                  25

Part IV: Future                                                                                                           39

Endnotes                                                                                                                     48

Bibliography                                                                                                               56

 

 

Executive Summary

 

1. This case study uses the analytical lens of human security to conduct a retrospective analysis of the conflict and humanitarian crisis of the last ten years (1991-2001) in Angola. This study develops a set of indicators to measure rising instability that might be effective for predicting conflict or crises in other settings. The close analysis of the situation in Angola also illustrates how an ex antehuman security assessment might have improved the international community’s interpretation and possible response to the shifting conditions on the ground over the last decade of civil war.

 

2. Authors Jennifer Leaning and Sam Arie developed the human security framework as part of a USAID/CERTI (Complex Emergency Response Transition Initiative) project through the Harvard School of Public Health and Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. The human security model seeks to shift the focus of international assistance to the individual, household, and community. This model posits that human security at the local level is essential to create a base of stability and resilience capable of sustaining human and economic development over the long term.

 

3. Human security is broadly defined as the individual or collective capacity to function productively and contribute to society. The basic needs of food, water, shelter, and safety are fundamental, but these requirements for survival must be supplemented by the psychosocial inputs of identity, recognition, participation, and autonomy. These psychosocial needs reflect individual and collective connections to self, others, and a sense of time. For assessment purposes, these needs are categorized as positive attachments to three domains: home, community, and the future. When connections to these domains are strong, resilience to external shock is increased, vulnerability mitigated, and the proclivity for conflict, crisis, and collapse decreases. To ensure more effective design and implementation of development programs, an assessment of an individual’s or a community’s hope for the future – the over-arching determinant of human security – will be critical.

 

4. Implementing the human security framework requires tracking and evaluating a series of indicators to monitor dynamic change on the ground over time. Evaluation of the indicators will capture trends and shifts that may presage periods of peace, conflict, or collapse. Close monitoring of the local level indices will improve both the predictive and interpretive capabilities of national and international agencies, and will assist organizations to develop timely and effective interventions to shore-up areas of potential instability. Identifying appropriate local level indicators entails broadening the scope and nature of information sources and thinking outside of the usual parameters of the development approach.

 

5. Human security as a positive attribute is difficult to measure, and is often more apparent in situations where it is lacking. Vulnerability is more easily recognizable than resilience, and the most effective measures of human security are negative indicators reflecting points of weakness or instability. For instance, rates of displacement are more readily available than information on people’s ties to their homes, and destructive tension between groups is more apparent than community cohesion. For these reasons, the framework calls for special attention to be paid to inverse indicators of human security.

 

6. This in-depth case study was compiled through an extensive literature review and analysis of the data of international organizations and United Nations agencies. This approach illustrates a highly effective manner of identifying possible indicators of human security, but also proves our initial hypothesis: an exhaustive retrospective analysis is not necessary for the development of appropriate indicators. While the case study brought to light many fascinating factors that have affected human security over the last decade in Angola, the majority of the most relevant trends and aspects could have been identified rapidly, assuming that agencies or individuals knew what to look for. This report seeks to provide examples of generic but viable indicators that are applicable to a variety of situations.

 

7. HOME:  The psychosocial domain of home focuses on individual and collective relationships to location. Positive attachments to home should provide safety, identity, recognition, and freedom from fear. Factors affecting attachment to home in Angola over the last decade include displacement, urbanization, desertion, forced immobility, and the desire to return home. The years of war in Angola have brought extremely high rates of internal and cross-border displacement, and some households have moved numerous times. Extended sieges of the cities in the central highlands resulted in long periods of forced immobility for many residents, negating the characteristic of home as a place of safety.

 

8. COMMUNITY: Analysis within the domain of community seeks to understand the nature of social and kinship ties. Ideally, these networks are sources of participation, resilience, and support for their members, but, as evident in many war-torn societies, the positive aspects of these networks can easily erode and decay. Events in Angola illustrate the negative effects of conflict, violence, and pervasive poverty on community cohesion. The broad categories influencing individual and collective attachments to community in Angola include social networks, inequality, authority structures, health, violence, conscription patterns, and crime.

 

9. THE FUTURE: Individual and collective sense of the future is the most difficult domain to quantify within the human security framework. Few reports or primary informant interviews contain direct references to hope or despair. Proxy indicators that relate to planning (or lack of planning) for the future are often the most effective indicators within this domain. Planting a harvest, for instance, signifies a planning horizon of at least one season. The savings rate of a given household or community is also a good indication of impressions of the future. Many complex factors influence individual and communal optimism or despair, but we found the following indicators to be the most relevant to our assessment of a sense of the future in Angola: food security, expressed or implied hope, coping strategies, participation in civil society, and birth and fertility rates.

Part I: Human Security in Angola

Introduction

A shifting focus

 

In recent years the discourse surrounding international development has begun to shift from the level of the state to the level of the household and community. Donors conceive of “beneficiaries” as families, households, or community groups, and many implementing partners now place greater emphasis on understanding local needs and priorities. Communities are increasingly expected to participate in development efforts and to assume responsibility for project sustainability. Macroeconomic development and national capacity building have not been swept by the wayside, but there exists an increased awareness of the benefits of community-based programs and the involvement of local populations.

 

Although field observations and evaluations are the best means of obtaining a clear picture of local needs and priorities, funding and programming decisions are usually made far from the beneficiary communities. As a result, the final “yea” or “nay” decision falls to individuals who manage multiple portfolios, have little time for extensive field visits, and face a range of competing political and budgetary constraints. 

 

The human security framework developed by authors Jennifer Leaning and Sam Arie in 2000 seeks to recognize and respond to this disconnect between the field practitioner and the donor office.[1] The framework suggests assessment mechanisms that can be applied from a distance yet focus on local changes and developments and recommends a set of indicators to measure the psychosocial well-being of communities. These indicators track sudden shifts and dynamic changes at the local level, but rely on information that can be gathered through a range of channels, contacts, and sources.

Non-Governmental Organizations: The essential link

 

National and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) continue to be the most important link between donors and communities. The onus remains on these organizations to conduct thorough and accurate assessments of need, to prioritize their findings, and to present compelling but reasoned projects and proposals to donors. To assist in this end, the human security framework seeks to develop a set of practical tools for use on the ground. As discussed in detail in this case study, the most important assessment mechanism is attention to local changes, such as those in mortality and morbidity, nutritional status, mobility, violent injuries, food security, and relative equality or social status. 

 

The key consideration of any implementing partner or donor should be: “Will this project achieve the desired result, and will that result make a positive impact on the lives of individuals, households, and communities?” Consequently, this case study stresses the importance of understanding how people relate to their homes and communities, how they view their future, and how these views are likely to affect the success or failure of projects or initiatives. Many well-conceived programs have failed due to a lack of readiness, absence of stability, or misunderstanding of community will and priorities. Sudden shifts in stability may be difficult to predict in advance, but attitudes and priorities at the individual and community level should be discernable through the use of contextually appropriate assessments tools, well-trained field workers, and astute analysis of collected data.  

 

The Human Security Framework

A prerequisite for human development

 

In line with the international discussion on human security, the Leaning/Arie model calls for a shift away from the state and towards individuals and communities in monitoring situations and in designing development programs. According to the model, a high degree of human security is critical for sustainable development, and should be ensured prior to the implementation of larger social, political, and economic programs.

 

If human security is a prerequisite for the long-term success of development programs, then national and international organizations should incorporate strategies to bolster human security into their projects. The outstanding issue, however, is how best to gauge the existing level of human security in a given society. Standard measures of development, such as life expectancy, literacy rates, and per capita GDP, are relevant in terms of a country’s overall international status, and can be relatively simple to measure and compile. These indices, however, can act as leveling devices that mask disparities among population groups, regions, and over time. Such measures also fail to take into account many of the conditions or experiences of a society’s most vulnerable members and do not register important changes that may occur under conditions of extreme insecurity, such as conflict or natural disaster.

 

Although no composite index will be able to take into account the experiences of every demographic group, the human security model seeks to identify indicators that will better reflect the stability or vulnerability of a broader range of communities. The specific indicators will differ based on context, culture, and community. At the same time, some measures of human security resonate across societies and regions.

 

Basic and psychosocial needs

 

Two key components make up the criteria required to achieve a base level of human security. First, people must be able to secure the basic needs of food, water, shelter and safety in order to have protection from or resilience to external threats. Second, the ability must exist to support the psychosocial needs of identity, recognition, participation, and autonomy.[2] Leaning and Arie argue that resilience is not based on material assets, but on a core bundle of material, social, and psychological resources.[3] This bundle dictates the terms of human survival and quality of life: a complete and durable collection of resources promotes human development, whereas a weak or incomplete bundle leaves people unable to withstand social, political, or economic shocks. The potential for conflict, crisis, or humanitarian collapse is partially determined by the quality of these individual and collective capabilities. Upheaval is more likely in societies where a large number of people lack basic and psychosocial necessities and are therefore chronically vulnerable to external shocks.[4]

 

The Leaning/Arie model assesses the psychosocial components of human security that appear to be common in all cultures and contexts. The authors break these components into three aspects of human existence: attachments to home (or location), sense of community, and impressions of the future. Analyzing psychosocial indicators under these categories will allow for an integrated interpretation of overall resilience or instability.

 

Three domains of human security

 

·         Home:                         a sustainable sense of location

·         Community:                 a network of constructive social or family support

·         Future:                         a positive sense of the future and acceptance of the past

 

The Leaning/Arie human security framework focuses on the strength of attachment to home, community, and the future. These linkages influence levels of human security: resilience is greater with stronger attachments to these three elements, and recovery from shock is difficult when connections are weak or damaged. Violence, displacement, discrimination and severe poverty erode linkages, forcing individuals to look to other, and possibly less constructive, sources for support, survival, and collective identity. These potentially destructive alternative sources can in turn contribute to social decay or disintegration.

 

Quantifying individual and collective attachment to home, community, and the future is often most feasible in the negative or inverse. Dislocation from home is more apparent than attachment; lack of leadership structures or high inequality are often more visible than community cohesion; high-risk behavior and reluctance to engage in long-term projects are more easily observed than careful planning for the future. Human security assessments therefore make use of negative indicators, designed to capture and measure levels of detachment, destruction, and pessimism. Changes in behavior and social patterns, either sudden alterations or shifts over time, can also signal shifts in levels of human security. In theory, a comprehensive analysis of inverse indicators flagged by dynamic change will serve as a threat assessment mechanism to predict the likelihood of conflict or retrospectively to examine the factors that contribute to crises. 

 

Home

 

The first psychosocial domain, sense of home or attachment to place, seeks to measure individual and collective relationships to a location. To be a source of stability, such a relationship must be sustainable and offer a sense of identity and freedom from fear. In assessing attachment to place, the human security model seeks to understand how dislocation from home influences individual and collective identity, recognition, participation and autonomy. Dislocation has a range of possible causes, including government policy, economic need, natural disasters, environmental degradation, and conflict. Forced displacement in the context of conflict is extremely devastating, as it often accompanies violence and the destruction of social networks.[5] Rates of impoverishment, malnutrition, and morbidity usually rise in situations of large-scale dislocation, and self-sufficiency, an important indicator of social and physical well-being, decreases.[6]  Due to these trends, the rate or extent of dislocation from home can be a critical measure of societal breakdown, reflecting the human toll brought by conflict, poverty or policy.

 

Community

 

The second psychosocial domain of human security is sense of community. The human security approach seeks to monitor factors that disrupt communities and the repercussions of these upheavals. The differing degrees of resilience and vulnerability among communities will also determine the extent of damage to the social order. In some instances, adverse situations (such as the siege of a town or city) may actually contribute to cohesion as communities draw together for survival. Other conditions, such as famine, may necessitate increased individualism and push people farther apart. Cohesion may break down due to sudden social or political changes, economic turmoil, ecological marginalization, or rising inequality. Influential leaders seeking to mobilize ethnic or national differences exacerbate tensions and fuel conflict. Regardless of the underlying factors, community disruption results in the disintegration of social networks and the fragmentation of collective identity. If we assume that a cohesive community is less prone to upheaval, then monitoring community decay may prove useful in predicting or understanding conflict or crisis.[7] 

 

Sense of the future

 

The final domain of the human security framework is individual or collective sense of the future. In order to have stability in terms of home and community, there needs to be a sense of continuity and predictability of these factors over time. Individuals or groups must consider their investments, capacities, and assets to be durable and protected. People often link their perceptions of the future to their impressions of the past: a strong historical attachment can provide cohesion under stress, but might also act as the vehicle for the perpetuation of grievance and conflict. Present conditions also have a strong bearing on people’s sense of their future, with deprivation, poverty, and protracted conflict unlikely to contribute to optimism.

 

A sense of the future is the most difficult of the human security indicators to measure. Political economist Peter Uvin believes that optimism or despair can be important reflections of how people view their situation. In his two and half years of research on Rwanda, however, Uvin found only two studies or interviews that directly mentioned the future.[8] In their work on human security, Leaning and Arie employ the concept of a “discount rate” to assess the interplay of behavior patterns and impressions of the future. In economic terms, the discount rate indicates how much of potential future assets people are willing to mortgage today. Engaging in risky behavior implies pessimism, or a high discount rate. Consumption of seed stores is an example of a behavior with a high discount rate, whereas planting crops or urban gardens signifies greater hope for the future.

 

Examining behavior for evidence of the discount rate can provide important information for retrospective analysis, but needs to be augmented by more practical information-gathering tools to be useful for programming purposes. We therefore recommend a more forthright investigation of people’s sense of the future in the initial phases of project planning and design. This will best be done through interviews and surveys of the target population.

Hope: The Over-Arching Determinant

 

A positive or negative sense of the future – essentially dictating an optimistic or pessimistic outlook – is the over-arching determinant of how people live their lives. In the absence of optimism – without hope – people are unable to invest in medium to long-term plans. Geographic, demographic, and economic factors have a strong influence on impressions of the future, as does proximity to conflict, food security, and health status. These factors shape the prevailing sentiments of a given population, which will in turn influence the receptivity to and ultimate success of development programs. A micro-finance project, for instance, requires a willingness among potential participants to make investments to better their future; such a project will not take hold in a climate of risk aversion and fear.

 

In order to design and implement effective and appropriate programs, development organizations and donor agencies need first to have a clear understanding of the impressions, outlooks, and prospects of individuals or communities. Degrees of optimism may vary strongly from one area or group to the next. These variations point to the need to have a rapid but localized method for assessing how people conceive of their current situation and future prospects.

 

Assessing hope

 

We offer several possible survey methods to acquire information regarding a population’s impressions of the future. We recommend that agencies and organizations designing field research select the assessment tool that is most appropriate based on organizational constraints and the characteristics of the target population.Recognizing the limitations of any assessment tool that seeks to gauge material or psychological needs, these should offer a rough evaluation of whether people feel their lives are getting better, worse, or staying the same.

 

The exact assessment mechanisms and specific questions will vary based on context, skills of field workers, and size of the population to be surveyed. For instance, a survey of a displaced population might include inquiries about plans to return home, impressions of safety in various locations, fear of landmines/conscription/return to war, losses of able-bodied family members, plans to transport possessions, and participation in community activities. In contrast, questions posed to a settled community might focus on planting seasons (fields or urban gardening), education of children, plans to have more children, impressions of disaster preparedness or conflict mitigation, food security, predictions for crop, animal, and human health over the coming year, stock-piling of food, and repair to existing housing stock. Perceived willingness to take or grant loans and the extent of savings (of cash, food, or seed) will stand as consistently reliable indicators of impressions of the future.

 

In brief, assessment options could include attitudinal surveys, semi-structured focus groups, or individual interviews. As detailed below, each of these options has its benefits as well as a specific set of limitations, associated costs, margins of error or bias, and potential cultural or contextual problems. [9]

 

§         Attitudinal surveys are designed to solicit perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes and usually follow the format of statement and ranked response. (For instance, a survey question would read, “The professor grades objectively,” and respondents rank the strength of their response from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”.) Questions are unambiguous and answers are quantifiable. This method, however, is most effective when self-administered and anonymous, and these benefits become obsolete in populations with high illiteracy rates. Furthermore, the format (definitive statement with an option for refutation) is culturally specific and can be confusing.

 

§         Semi-structured focus groups usually center on a few essential questions. Interviewees are encouraged to expand and explore these issues through discussion. This type of conversational approach may work well in cultures accustomed to public meetings and decision-making through dialogue, but requires a greater time commitment, more intensive training of interviewers, extensive translation, and thorough analysis of results.

 

§         Individual interviews will allow for the greatest detail in the information gathered, but also require the most time, training, and analysis. As a result, the individual interview format is likely to result in smaller overall sample size.

 

The potential reluctance of respondents to discuss their personal lives may be a problem with all of the above methodologies. Respondents who have had prior interaction with development agencies may tailor their answers to attract international assistance. The social status of an individual within the community (as determined by gender, ethnicity, generation, class, or political affiliation) may also affect the nature of the information supplied. Despite the shortcomings and methodological constraints, these rough assessment tools will assist planners and policy makers to acquire a sense of the range of impressions regarding the future of a given demographic group.

 

Using assessment information

 

Results of psychosocial assessments should be used to complement other more traditional assessments, and should be viewed as a sort of “red light” or “green light” for the implementation or continuation of specific projects. Many of the factors contributing to pervasive despair are nearly impossible to address, such as recurring drought or war. Realistic programs aimed at disaster mitigation and local conflict negotiation can seek to alleviate some of the more localized repercussions of these larger negative constants, and such efforts may, over time, assist in building hope at the local level. In a post-conflict setting, for instance, development projects are unlikely to be sustainable if morale and hope are extremely low. In such instances, international agencies may find that projects with more immediate results will be more effective in building human security and stability. This may entail the continuing provision of relief supplies where needed (both food and non-food commodities), the introduction of activities with short-term and easily transferable inputs (eg., restocking of small livestock such as guinea pigs), and work on conflict resolution (in the case of war) or improved resilience, preparedness, and mitigation (for disaster-prone populations).

 

Application to Angola

 

Brief history

 

Angola has been at war since the early 1960s, when uprisings began against the Portuguese colonial government. Lisbon granted independence to the colony in 1975, but civil war between the former liberation movements had resumed by the year’s end. Foreign backing of the two main warring parties remained strong throughout the 1970s and 1980s, with the United States and South Africa backing Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) and the Soviet Union and Cuba lending support to President Eduardo dos Santos’s MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola). Since the early 1990s, there have been two internationally brokered peace accords followed by sustained periods of partial peace. Both these periods contained signs of stability: demobilization campaigns began, imports of weapons decreased, harvests were planted, food security improved, and select roads re-opened. Yet both ceasefires collapsed, bringing a return to all-out war.Angola’s political leaders bear much of the responsibility for the resumption of hostilities in both 1992 and 1998, but the experiences of individuals and communities remain central to understanding and interpreting the conflict. [10]

 

Setting a baseline for the human security model

 

The choice of Angola as a case study for the human security model may seem odd to those who are familiar with the nation’s recent history. There is no possibility of predicting an imminent outbreak of conflict, as the country has been at war almost continuously for forty years. Years of colonialism, conflict, disease, pillage, and lack of investment have left the countryside ravaged and the population maimed, uprooted, orphaned, and impoverished. The level of human security in Angola would seem to be easily ascertainable: there is none.

 

We predicted that the extreme conditions in Angola would actually make the country an ideal test case for the human security model. Angola would serve to create a sort of ground zero against which other contexts could be compared. Surprisingly, closer examination of Angola revealed that while the country and populace ranked extremely low on many indicators (such as dislocation, maternal mortality, prevalence of landmines, and recurring food insecurity), there were also pervasive periods of optimism and strong indications of hope, even after more than a quarter century of war. The near-zero ratings on many indicators does, as predicted, allow for the testing of the human security framework and the compilation of indices pointing to the disintegration or improvement in levels of human security. Perhaps more interesting, the unexpected aspects and determinants of hope, community cohesion, and resilience in the country serve to remind us that human security is not a simple or straightforward concept, but rather a complex measure of psychological and social relations, attachments, impressions, and outlooks.

 

Data shortfalls

 

The lack of high-quality quantitative data on Angola also piqued our interest. Would it be possible to conduct a human security assessment given the unavailability of robust data? The decades of upheaval in Angola have resulted in a relative dearth of extensive academic or social science reports on the country, particularly in English. The information flow inside the country is also severely limited due to the destruction of transportation networks, communication systems, and rural/urban links. Until very recently, little was known about conditions in UNITA-held areas that were inaccessible to most national or international agencies for long periods of time. Even now, the presence of landmines and lack of security clearance prevents most members of the NGO community from working in vast areas of the country.[11] Demographic statistics are sparse, as the last official census was conducted under Portuguese rule in 1970 and few modern and reliable sources on socioeconomic conditions exist. Much of the publicly available data is compiled from the surveys and assessments of international NGOs in the more accessible urban areas, primarily Luanda. 

 

A successful human security analysis requires a substantial amount of detailed information regarding local level changes. But few organizations – regardless of the country or context – track such indicators over time in a systematic fashion. Starting from scratch in Angola allowed us to examine the situation from a fresh perspective and to identify ways in which the human security approach could be useful in analyzing even the most difficult country contexts.[12]

 

Indicators must be developed in order to conduct a human security assessment and measure individual and collective attachment to home, community, and the future. Due to the lack of quality primary material on conditions in Angola, however, it was often necessary to rely on generalized or anecdotal information, resulting in a slightly less nuanced picture. In terms of attachment to home, for instance, overall displacement rates within the country at different times are used to provide a general assessment of changing situations. At times we tracked “proxy indicators” to fill in knowledge gaps: in the absence of clear and detail-rich data, alternative measures that link closely to the desired data set are assessed and considered. The proxy indicators used in this case study are those that appeared repeatedly and seemed to correlate closely to the conditions being measured. While the indicators and subsequent conclusions developed here seek to give an overall impression of human security over the past ten years in Angola, the end result will always be open to re-visitation and improvements.

 

Alternatives: A Rapid Approach to Human Security

 

Adopting the human security approach requires the incorporation of a set of indicators into relief and development programs to monitor local level changes in the political, social, and economic realm. Close attention to these changes will enable national and international actors to stay abreast of possible declines or advances in human security in a given geographic area. Gradual trends or abrupt developments will point to areas of possible conflict, humanitarian crises, or public health emergencies.

 

We compiled this case study of human security in Angola through an extensive review of secondary material. Although this has resulted in a comprehensive analysis of the situation, the human security framework does not mandate such an in-depth process. Our research proved that such an endeavor is unnecessary in most cases, and that the essential indicators of human security for a given country can be ascertained much more rapidly and with little expense. In fact, many of the most important factors affecting levels of human security in Angola seem strikingly obvious to anyone familiar with the recent history and prevailing circumstances in the country. Our pre-research hypothesis assumed the following characteristics to be critical to human security in Angola: 

 

·         High rates of displacement and repeated displacement over time eroded individual and collective attachments to home and kinship systems.

·         Systematic and widespread violence against civilians marred the notion of “home” as “safe” and undermined community cohesion. 

·         The country’s extremely low health ranking on indices such as the UNDP Human Development Report signified adverse affects on community well-being and hope for the future.

·         Years of civil war and the repeated collapse of peace efforts were likely to have resulted in extremely low levels of hope for the future.

·         Extreme income inequality and urban/rural disparity adversely affected community cohesion.

·         Extensive state expenditures on the war effort and minimal investments in social services resulted in a poor social contract between the state and its constituents.

·         Food insecurity caused by lack of market access, inability to harvest due to landmines and attacks on civilians, and drought strained coping strategies.

·         Years of inaccessibility to UNITA-held areas resulted in an information gap concerning extensive areas of the country.

 

Rapid information gathering based on country context

 

In order to quickly implement the human security approach, international agencies should identify a dozen generic but viable indicators likely to reflect levels of human security in a given context. Outreach to a range of information sources will rapidly demonstrate the appropriateness of these various measures, and will enable agencies to assign qualitative mechanisms to those that are the most relevant. These indicators can then be incorporated into programs and tested for applicability and effectiveness on the ground. If we had opted to assess our hypothetical indicators for Angola through a “quick and dirty” approach, we would have employed the following methods to gather extensive information in a matter of days:

 

·         Contact the major oil companies in the country to discuss conditions around their installations, concerns regarding the conflict, pay scales for national versus expatriate workers, and the crime rates in various regions.

·         Contact security firms such as Executive Outcomes, the outfit that provided mercenary services to both sides in the 1990s, to discuss the conflict and its repercussions in more remote areas.

·         Seek access to satellite data that might show the areas harvested from one year to the next, the condition of the transportation infrastructure, and population movements.

·         Make contact with UNITA representatives living abroad to discuss the situation in UNITA-held areas.

·         Visit or contact the Angolan embassy for the government perspective on the war.

·         Contact members of the Angolan diaspora who have left the country at various intervals for an insider perspective.

·         Contact academics with expertise in the region. 

·         Contact the country director of Médicins sans Frontières or another organization with extensive health outreach at the local level and a long history in the country to discuss the health situation.

·         Find contact information for key private-sector actors (such as traders, currency runners, arms or diamond smugglers) with access to cell phones and discuss the situation in parts of the country that are inaccessible to international agencies.

·         Contact the various UN special representatives from the last ten years to discuss the collapse of the peace process.

·         Examine the monitoring and distribution reports from WFP to ascertain where relief is going and where it is not. Contact the country director and logistics officer to discuss accessibility.

·         Contact Angolan and international journalists with extensive experience in the country.

·         Visit the websites of African newspapers, watchdog groups, and universities.

·         Seek the most updated reports from the major NGOs working in the country and seek their candid assessments of progress, prospects, and the continuing obstacles.

 

With a few amendments, this list of potential sources of information is applicable to a wide variety of international contexts. Discussions with these contacts would serve to quickly generate a list of the most relevant and quantifiable indicators for the country or context. Mechanisms to track these indicators would then be included in on-going programs and projects, allowing for a “test run” on the relevancy and quality of information gathered through monitoring.

 

Key indicators for various country contexts

 

Many indicators will stand as essential monitors of human security in almost every country. We offer the following list of generic but viable categories of indicators as a starting point for international donors and operational agencies. With several days of investigation and contacts of the nature suggested above, we believe that organizations will be able to narrow this list to the most relevant measures of human security in a given country: 

 

·         Extent of displacement (numbers of IDPs and refugees, living conditions for these groups, relations with host communities)

·         Mortality (crude, maternal, infant, under five years, and adult)

·         Global and severe malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies(by population sector and geographic region)

·         Disease (prevalence and trajectory of infectious diseases, presence of vaccine-preventable diseases, extent of vaccination campaigns, re-emergence of rare or previously eradicated diseases, state funding on prevention mechanisms)

·         Violence within society (regionally and demographically specific, sanctioned by the state or used against the state, violence against civilians, domestic violence, crime rates)

·         Conflict (prevalence and extent of conflict, number and flow of small arms, landmine casualties, role of civilians in conflict, voluntary or forced conscription, use of child soldiers, reintegration of former combatants)

·         Inequality (based on income, race, ethnicity, political or social affiliation, region, access to natural resources, access to social services, access to relief and development resources, and access to political power)

·         Kinship and social networks (intergenerational ties, number of street children, single parent households, migration, remittances, intra-family debt, intra-household access to entitlements)

·         Food security (extent of planting and harvesting, access to markets, availability of goods in markets, fluctuations in market prices, price discrimination based on class, gender, or ethnicity, urban/rural price differentials, intra-household food distribution, effects of relief distributions on prices)

·         Coping strategies (common coping methods in a given area and among a given population, possible erosion of these strategies over time, destructive or constructive effects on physical and psychosocial well-being, demographic factors determining employment of coping mechanisms) 

·         Investment in the future (prevalence of high-risk behavior, planting of crops, savings rates, school enrollment, birth and fertility rates)

 

Summary

 

This preliminary study of Angola has micro and macro implications for the human security model. On the micro level, the case provides a setting for the development of context-specific indicators in the broader domains of home, community, and sense of the future as they have existed in the last ten years of the Angolan conflict.  A close examination of this set of indicators might offer lessons as to how and when the international community could have acted to mitigate vulnerability and perhaps deter the return to conflict. These lessons may in turn offer direction for future interventions or mediation efforts. On the macro level, the research into Angola lays the basic framework and format for the application of the human security model in other contexts. In terms of policy repercussions, the application to Angola highlights the need to expand information observation, analysis, and reporting to the level of local authorities and communities. Furthermore, in order for any sort of early warning mechanism to be effective, the time frame of development and conflict management projects will also need to be expanded.  Such changes may improve the capability of the international community to respond to and/or mitigate conflict, but will only be possible through political will and commitment. The following three sections examine the situation in Angola over the last ten years, and outline a series of indicators applying to the psychosocial domains of home, community, and the future.

Part II: Home

 

An examination of location in Angola through the human security lens substantiates the premise that people are usually better of it they are able to remain at home with their families intact. Nevertheless, the picture is a complex one. People who are prevented from leaving home may experience the lowest human security. Not everyone who is displaced wishes to return home. Conflict does not affect all people in the same manner, as different population groups experience varying levels of human security under the same external conditions.  Close attention must also be paid to the driving forces behind displacement, urbanization, and upheaval to better understand the human security repercussions at the individual and household level.

 

To capture the complexities of home and organize our conclusions regarding human security in Angola, the following indicators were identified: displacement, urbanization, desertion of towns, demographics, forced immobility, and returning home.

 

Displacement[13]

 

 

According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), up to four million Angolans have been uprootedsince 1975, with an estimated 2.86 million internally displaced people, or deslocados, as of March 2001.[15] Both sides in the conflict have long employed strategies of forced dislocation against the civilian population, a clear indication of the tactic’s effectiveness as a weapon of war. In the early 1980s, for instance, the government herded half a million people in the central provinces into protected villages to isolate them from the recruitment drives of UNITA guerillas.[16]  In recent years, UNITA has favored a tactic of driving people into government-held urban areas, thereby decreasing urban stability and heightening the social demands placed on the government. Most of the people psuhed into the urban areas are children and the elderly, as UNITA press-gangs younger adults into military service or retains them in the countryside to work in the fields.[17]

 

The main cause of displacement in Angola seems to be violence or the threat of violence, but other underlying causes, such as food shortages, lack of employment, or better opportunities elsewhere, also contribute to population movements.[18] These distinct causes of displacement indicate different levels of human security. Someone who relocates to seek work, for instance, is likely to have a higher degree of security than one who moves out of fear for his or her life. The number of people that migrate at one time or as one unit also shows variations in human security, with the movement of a large group signifying lower levels of security than the migration of one family.

 

Some theorists, such as Suzanne Jaspars and Helen Young, view migration in the context of complex emergencies as an indication of high distress, a coping mechanism that is invoked only when insurance strategies and more reversible forms of crisis response have failed.[19] Such desperation is evident in an interview given by a displaced Angolan to Médecins Sans Frontières

 

(MSF): “We left because of death and famine….At some point, we had almost nothing left to eat, so we decided to flee through the bush, hoping to be able to reach Kuito.”[20] In the context of Angola, where conflict has affected almost every region, internal or cross-border migration can almost always be linked to high distress and low human security.[21]

 

Effects of displacement

 

Although people migrate in search of better conditions or to escape adversity, research has shown that circumstances usually worsen following dislocation after connections to homesteads neighborhoods and social networks are broken.[22] In Angola, relocation often means sacrificing investments in land and livelihoods, as displaced populations have less access to farm plots, education, and health care than host populations. New migrants to urban areas face discrimination when competing for jobs with more long-standing residents. Housing is usually inadequate in peri-urban areas, and camps for the displaced are poorly serviced. A joint program launched in mid-2000 by the Angolan government and UNHCR found that most IDPs were “living in over-crowded inhumane conditions, without access to food, medical care, water or sanitation.”[23] Furthermore, health care statistics indicate that deslocados are more vulnerable to death and disease than their settled counterparts, largely due to poor sanitation, malnutrition, and limited access to clean water.[24]

 

Correlation between displacement and conflict

 

Research on Angola indicates that displacement tracks closely with periods of escalation in conflict. One example comes from the collapse of the Bicesse Peace Accords and resumption of hostilities in late 1992. Hoping that the peace would last, many people started to return home after the signing of the agreement in May 1991, but the number of displaced rose rapidly with the eruption of fighting sixteen months later.[25] The intensification of violence in the following two years forced an estimated 50,000 refugees to flee to neighboring countries,[26] and a total of 1.3 to 2 million Angolans abandoned their homes.[27] Displacement skyrocketed when the Lusaka Protocol was abandoned again in late 1998, with one million newly displaced between late 1998 and late 2000.[28] The renewal of fighting was most severe in the central highlands, as was the rate of internal displacement in the region in this period.[29]  

 

A cessation of violence, however, may not directly induce people to return home. Endorsement of the Lusaka Protocol in November 1994 by the government and rebels seemed to signal another chance at peace, but people were cautious about returning after the failure of the Bicesse agreement. UNHCR misjudged this apprehension, and launched an appeal to fund a repatriation and reintegration operation aimed at assisting 311,000 refugees predicted to return to Angola. Delays in the implementation of the accords, continuing instability, and the presence of millions of un-mapped landmines contributed to insecurity, resulting in a much lower rate of spontaneous repatriation.[30]

 

Migration as early warning

 

Migration is often an important sign of impending conflict. Fear and rising insecurity drives people from their homes, and tracking migration patterns will help indicate impending conflict. Whereas rural residents and the poor have few options but to pack up and leave, wealthier urban dwellers generate a slightly different set of migration-related indicators. For instance, a sudden rise in visa and passport applications signals insecurity among the better off, as does evidence of preparation for the flight of capital (transfers to off-shore accounts, exports of expensive household goods, etc). Increased polarization of ethnic groups and growing homogeneity of previously mixed neighborhoods is a sign of growing ethnic strife.

 

Urbanization

 

 

Urbanization as a measure of human security points to discrepancies in stability, security, and resources between urban and rural areas. High urbanization rates in many developing but peaceful countries, however, demonstrate that there is not necessarily a direct correlation between conflict and rural out-migration. Large-scale migration to the cities is common in countries moving from an agriculture-based to a manufacturing-based economy, as rural residents seek better services and employment in urban areas. However, while some Angolans move to the cities in search of economic opportunities, a disproportionately high number of Angolan urban migrants are motivated by a set of “push factors” unique to countries experiencing protracted conflict. These include the direct violence of the war, as well as secondary consequences of the conflict, such as the severing of rural-urban market links, chronic food insecurity, and destruction of transport and communication systems.

 

While no official census has been conducted in Angola in over thirty years and existing demographic information is sparse and often contradictory, evidence points to increased urbanization in the country. People continued to move to the highland towns over the last ten years, even as these cities came under regular fire. Large numbers of people flocked to the relative safety of Luanda, settling in the urban slums (musseques) ringing the capital.[31] The World Bank found that 79% of the Angolan population lived in rural areas in 1980, compared to 67% in 1998.[32] The Angolan government estimated that 15% of the population lived in urban areas in 1970, compared to 40% in 1992. Urbanization was thought to have reached roughly 50% by 1996.[33] Huambo, Angola’s second largest city and located in the volatile highland region, grew from less than 100,000 residents in 1975 to over 1 million in 1990, while a similar rate of growth has been estimated for Lubango in neighboring Huíla Province.[34]  Better infrastructure is not a pull factor, as most towns and cities lack all but the most rudimentary services.

 

Rural to urban migration

 

Urbanization in Angola is largely driven by the low levels of human security in rural areas arising from desperation, conflict, food shortages, and the destruction of social networks. As in many developing countries, however, the influx of people into cities does not bring higher human security, as growing numbers compete for scarce employment, resources, and space to call home. People moving to peri-urban areas may be making conscious choices to exchange one type of insecurity for another. In the context of war, for instance, people may accept increased poverty and disease or be willing to give up social and family networks to move to an area of greater perceived safety. Rising rents in conflict and post-conflict states can serve as a human security indicator, and should be cause for concern due to the possible ramifications on stability and community relations.

 

Desertion

 

 

The phenomenon of the total desertion or sudden abandonment of towns implies extreme distress and massive upheaval. In June of 1999, fieldworkers from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) found the first evidence of total desertion in the region when they discovered the towns of Gove, Sambo, and Cuima in the vicinity of Huambo completely abandoned.[35] The Huambo area had been the scene of intense fighting in the 1992-1994 war, and became immersed in conflict again after the 1998 collapse of the Lusaka Protocol. Little was known about the circumstances surrounding the desertion of the towns, or whether the inhabitants returned shortly thereafter. While more information would be helpful, this complete abandonment of towns indicates an extreme loss of hope, a fragile attachment to home in comparison to the need to flee, and a terror or pronounced desperation severe enough to drive entire communities from their villages.

 

It is highly possible that desertions other than those reported around Huambo have occurred but have not been noted by international or national agencies. Local people, including churches, transport drivers, local leaders, and inhabitants of adjacent areas crossed by the fleeing residents would be more likely to be aware of such events. Identifying desertion as a signal of extreme insecurity and conveying the importance of such phenomenon would potentially increase the reporting of such events to relevant authorities. Information sharing between local people and national and international organizations needs to be strengthened and reciprocated in order to rapidly recognize impending or existing social collapse and the potential implications for a wider region.

 

Demography of the Displaced

 

 

While reliable demographic information on Angola is limited, some conclusions can be drawn regarding the war’s effects on family structures and levels of vulnerability. A breakdown of the population by gender and age points to shifting demographic patterns caused by the war. There are 92 men for every 100 women in Angola, but in the 20 to 24 year old bracket there are only 70 men for every 100 women, illustrating the heavy toll the war has taken on young men in particular.[37] Men are also more likely to move to urban centers for economic reasons, whereas women often remain in the rural areas. The rate of male migration combined with high mortality levels for young men has shifted authority within the home, with an estimated 30-35% of family units presently headed by women.[38]

 

 

Men are more likely than women to be killed in active combat, but women and children make up the most vulnerable civilian group. An estimated 80% of the 1.25 million people believed to be internally displaced in 1996 were women and children. This percentage is consistent with international displacement figures, which state that four-fifths of war refugees are women and young girls.[39]Women in rural areas are particularly vulnerable in their positions as cultivators and water collectors, as landmines are common along paths and in fields, and random attacks against villages often occur in outlying areas. The decline in able-bodied men in rural locales and areas with a high concentration of IDPs has further amplified the burden on women as the sole providers for children and the elderly. Refugee or displaced women are often dependent on others for provision of basic necessities, and are therefore highly exploitable while displaced.[40]Jennifer Turpin explains these increased demands in the context of refugee women, but her observations also apply to the internally displaced:

 

Refugee women often serve as their children’s sole caretakers, as many of them are widows or separated from their spouses and other extended family. They must seek food and safety not only for themselves, but also for their children, who also need health care, housing, and an education. Refugee women in exile are often the supporters of an extended family network, playing a central economic role yet still lacking decision-making power in their societies.[41]

 

Women and children are also more likely to suffer disproportionately during the actual process of displacement. This arises from a variety of factors, including higher vulnerability, prevalence of sexual and physical violence, and combatants’ manipulation of population groups seen as weak or expendable. Jodi York describes the conditions experienced by women during and after flight: “Reaching a refugee camp usually requires a woman to sacrifice everything she owns to pay for bribes and avoid repeated rapes, only to arrive in a situation where her physical safety is just as endangered.”[42] When warring factions, hijackers, or hostage takers use human shields they are most likely to use those in low societal positions as the buffer. This was the case in early 1993 when the central Angolan city of Huambo fell to UNITA troops. Government soldiers and a large civilian contingent fled the city, and the women and children were reportedly pushed to the rear of the column to shield the combatants against attack.[43] These examples show that human security is not consistent across society, but is experienced differently in the same situation by different groups based on gender, age, and societal position.[44] 

 

Vulnerability of children

 

Children and providing care to children form a critical part of the psychosocial domain of home.[45] The well-being of children therefore serves as a useful indicator of human security. Certain organizations, such as UNICEF, have already created measurement indices amalgamating variables to rank the status of children in various countries. UNICEF’s index, the Child Risk Measure, found Angolan children to be the most at risk in the world. On an index where a low figure signifies better conditions, Angola received a rank of 96, as compared to the average of 61 for sub-Saharan.[46] Other clear indicators of children’s vulnerability are infant and under-five mortality rates. The UNDP lists the Angola’s 1998 infant mortality rate at 170 out of 1,000 live births, which is second only to Sierra Leone’s rate of 182. Under-five mortality is listed as 292 per 1,000 live births, compared to 316 for Sierra Leone.[47] The high death rate and poor conditions experienced by children indicate low overall human security in the domain of home. While the status of children is only one aspect of the well-being of a family, these readily-available measures prove useful as a starting point from which to build a more thorough analysis.  

 

The war experience of children also sheds light on the level of human security. According to the Ministry of Social Affairs and Reintegration (MINARS), the Angolan government department in charge of humanitarian operations, more than half the war-affected and displaced are children.[48] A United Nations report from the year 2000 estimated that 100,000 children were separated from their birth families. In a report from the same year, OCHA pointed out that although many of these children had been integrated into alternative family or community structures, many were without care or have only bare minimum needs met.[49] An estimated 8,000 to 10,000 orphans live in the city of central highland city Malanje alone, many of whom lost their mothers to landmine accidents while the adults were looking for food around the besieged city.[50] Benguela and Luanda saw the arrival of roughly 10,000 children between December 1998 and March 1999 due to the heavy fighting in the highland areas.[51] These migrations lead to high numbers of street children, where many are forced to adopt destructive coping mechanisms such as prostitution, crime, or drug use to survive.[52] Others end up as child soldiers, as their exposure and vulnerability makes them easy conscripts. While many children are integrated into alternative care networks, the high number of street children points to the disintegration of much of the larger social and kinship network.

 

Forced Immobility

 

 

While people are generally thought to be in a better position if they maintain ties with their home, this equation is reversed if people are physically prevented from fleeing in times of danger. Combatants have a variety of reasons for limiting the movements of civilians, including the use of the local population for food, conscripts, sexual favors, or camouflage. In many internal conflicts, control of territory and the appearance of supporters are important factors, and opposing forces may wish to keep civilian numbers in their areas high. (In other instances, combatants may prefer to control territory free of inhabitants, and may drive residents out of the area.) Over the last ten years in Angola, UNITA has frequently besieged towns for extended periods, allowing few people to enter or leave. Landmines litter the Angolan countryside, making cultivation, water collection, or travel on unfamiliar roads or paths extremely hazardous.

 

Siege

 

The UNITA sieges of the central highlandcities of Huambo, Cuito, and Malanje offer some of the starkest examples of forced immobility. Cuito remained under siege for 21 months beginning in early 1993, with the total death toll estimated at 20,000 to 30,000 people. Snipers infiltrated the city and took up positions in abandoned buildings on the front line, which ran down one of the town’s main streets for many months. Residents tore holes in the walls between their houses and apartments to connect city blocks and limit the need to venture outside. Trips still had to be made to the river for water, and many of the casualties from sniper fire were therefore women and children.[53] The cemetery was inaccessible for most of the period, and people buried their dead in parks and walkways, or placed them on apartment balconies and covered them with debris.[54]

 

Huambo endured a siege of 55 days in 1993, with an estimated 10,000-15,000 people killed.  More than 1,000 shells fell on the city per day at the height of the attack.[55] The city eventually fell to UNITA, and the government forces and tens of thousands fled the city for the coast. As they vacated, the retreating forces left a blanket of landmines in the suburban areas, ostensibly to hinder a chase by the incoming UNITA troops. Some people managed to escape from the cities in these periods, though chances of being killed while crossing enemy lines were extremely high.  The third major highland city, Malanje, underwent periods of siege and relief for several years, and saw some of the worst mortality rates and conditions in the conflict. In one attack, beginning in January 1999, UNITA forces appeared to be aiming shells at heavily populated market areas. All food supplies were cut off from the city for extended periods.[56]

 

Landmines

 

The prevalence of landmines around villages and towns also increases the insecurity associated with home. Landmines have been a favorite weapon of every armed faction in Angola since the early 1960s, and estimates of total numbers of existing mines range from 7 to 10 million. While this practice may be effective in slowing troop movements, the mining of fields, roads, and paths to water sources affects civilians most severely. Landmines trap people within their homes or villages, making roads inaccessible, fields impossible to cultivate, and daily life fraught with risk. Mine explosions have killed thousands of Angolans, and more than 70,000 people have lost limbs.[57] 

 

Reactions to forced immobility 

 

Measures taken to cope with forced immobility act as indicators of human security. As illustrated from the following examples from siege periods in Malanje, coping measures vary depending on the levels of desperation. Seeking cover or protection is a low-risk response to forced immobility, as was witnessed by a BBC journalist on a visit to a suburb of Malanje during a brief lull in shelling in April 1999:

 

In Rotunda as we walked around people kept popping their heads up from holes they had dug in the ground. People in Rotunda were so used to UNITA’s shelling that they had become like rabbits digging out a rabbit warren to try to protect themselves from the shells.[58]

 

Lying low is only possible for so long, however, and people will eventually engage in high-risk activities in order to meet basic needs or in attempts to flee. Another observer’s description indicates extreme desperation in Malanje at a period in the mid-1990s: 

Every relief flight bringing food and medicine in became an evacuation flight out with desperate people rioting on the airstrip for a place on the cargo plane, or even trying to cling to the wings and wheels as the pilot accelerated down the runway.[59]

 

These reports clearly indicate low levels of human security for people who remained in their homes against their will or in extremely adverse conditions. Physical proximity to home does not necessarily translate into higher human security. 

 

Returning Home

 

 

The desire of individuals, families, or communities to return home following displacement is an important aspect of attachment to place from a human security perspective. It is often assumed that returning to the place of origin is the primary goal of the uprooted. While attachment to home and desire to return can frequently be a motivating objective, this may not be the case in all circumstances. People may have been removed from their home for such a long period of time or to such a distance that return loses relevancy. Younger generations brought up in cities or urban camp environments may have little interest in returning to unfamiliar rural areas. In some instances, the displaced may have found greater opportunities at their new location, or may be unwilling to give up newly established social networks. And often, of course, the home region may simply remain too dangerous or unstable to receive returnees.

 

Desire to return is also closely linked to the circumstances under which people left their original location. Those that left under force or duress, such as the Palestinian refugees, are more likely to define their struggle around the desire to return. Ones who made a conscious choice to resettle elsewhere, even if due to instability in their home region, may be more likely to put down roots in their new location. These considerations lead us to questions of what is home, how is it defined and by whom. The answers of displaced people to these questions will prove central to understanding their levels of human security.

 

Summary

 

Ties to place are closely linked to a positive or negative sense of community and the future. A strong and unified community, made up of social or kinship networks, is likely to increase a sense of belonging to a particular place. In terms of the future, the psychological importance of a given location might decrease if people feel that their situation is destined to worsen; day-to-day survival replaces attachment to home as the variable of primary importance. On the other hand, people may adopt the reverse attitude, giving renewed emphasis to their attachment to home as “all they have left,” or their “only hope.”

If physical attachment to place is determined by location, psychological attachment to place is affected by memories of the past and hope for the future. In many traditional African religions a great emphasis is placed on the location of the graves of the ancestors, and removal from this land can be particularly traumatic.[60] Inter-generational knowledge is also linked to place, and a rupture in families can occur if one generation is removed from the home or land deemed significant by their elders. The severing of ties between generations is already a common facet of life in Angola due to high mortality rates, urbanization, and displacement, and destroying continuity of location further exacerbates this situation.

 

In Angola, conflict is the primary factor determining the ability of an individual or community to maintain attachment to home. The prevalence of violence, likelihood of raids, presence of land mines, or proximity to violence all factor into the decision to flee or stay put.  Armies on both sides use forced displacement and/or forced immobility to manipulate the civilian population. Food insecurity, access to markets, strength of local social networks, and environmental degradation of an area also influence decisions to migrate. While the Angola study provides a useful assessment of home for human security analyses, in other country contexts the exploration of additional indicators may be more feasible.

 

Part III: Community

 

Community cohesion is essential to the healthy operation of a society. Not surprisingly, conflict, humanitarian collapse, and natural disasters usually negatively affect communal relations and human security. There is a great deal, however, still to be learned about impending crises and the nature of community resilience and response. Key components of human security within communities include societal relations, inequality, authority and kinship structures, emergency health indicators, violence against non-combatants, forced conscription and child soldiers, and crime. Obvious overlaps exist with the domains of home and sense of the future: communities are made up of households with a common attachment to a location, and the strength or resilience of a community directly corresponds to how the group views its future.

 

Many of the indicators representing community are most apparent as inverses or negatives; destructive tensions or events within a community, for instance, are often more visible than the strength of community ties. Likewise, sharing between and amongst groups may be difficult to gauge, but degrees of overall inequality are evident in income assessments, delivery of services, and distribution of resources. From the predictive angle, monitoring and evaluation efforts of these indicators can augment an effective early warning system, providing a “temperature reading” of a community’s stability or weakness to assist in the planning of interventions. Conditions at the local level change extremely quickly, making constant and effective monitoring of community indicators essential.

 

Societal Relations

 

 

Humans and their representative communities seek to fill basic psychosocial needs of identity, recognition, participation, and autonomy. These needs are often met through group membership, with the inclusion of some and the exclusion of others.[61] While tension or conflict is not inherent to this model, if and when divisions do open up they are likely to fall along the lines of pre-established group distinctions. Such distinguishing characteristics might include ethnicity, place of origin, class, generation, religion or race. A range of factors, including resource scarcity, political oppression, and the personal or political agenda of community or national leaders exacerbate destructive societal divisions. As Eileen Babbitt points out, strong inter-group or ethnic conflict also causes long-term problems because “it poisons the political and social environment.” The “us versus them” mentality becomes institutionalized and difficult to reverse, either psychologically or politically, posing an added challenge to the rebuilding of communities and the bolstering of human security.[62]

 

Ethnic violence in Angola

 

Ethnic violence has not traditionally played a major role in Angola’s socio-political landscape.[63] As eruptions amidst relative stability, the occasional outbreaks of extreme ethnic violence therefore point even more clearly to community collapse.

 

Angola’s worst bout of ethnic violence in the last ten years followed the first national democratic elections, held in late September 1992. Following his defeat to President dos Santos in the first round, UNITA leader Savimbi declared the electoral results invalid and his forces quickly resumed operations in the provinces. The fighting spread quickly, reaching the usually immune capital within weeks, and violence broke out in the streets of Luanda on October 31^st. The upheaval lasted for three days and left 1,200 people – mostly civilians – dead. The victims were primarily ethnic Ovimbundus or from regions considered to be UNITA strongholds. The violence spread to other cities; house-to-house searches and random executions of unarmed or fleeing civilians were common. Although controversial, the ethnic component of the violence is apparent in the Angolan reference to the period as limpeza, roughly translated as “purging” or “cleansing.”[64] Relative calm returned to most urban areas within several days of the outbreak of fighting, but the violence disrupted communal relationships, undermined existing neighborhood networks, and eroded bonds of trust between neighbors and families.

 

While violent fissures along societal dividing lines have been limited in Angola, the outbreaks following the elections point to a dangerous and destabilizing undercurrent of hostility and tension. The urban context of the killings came as a surprise, as rapid urbanization had resulted in ethnically diverse peri-urban musseques. [65] But the limpeza shows that collective violence in times of threat or fear is likely to occur along pre-existing dividing lines (such as ethnicity), even in mixed neighborhoods. Luanda saw a second outbreak of ethnic violence in late January of 1993, this time aimed at immigrants from Zaire rumored to be supporting Savimbi. The re-emergence of violence a few months later illustrates the pervasive unresolved tensions and the likelihood of repeated flare-ups following an initial outbreak of violence.[66] Tracking such ruptures in the pattern of community relations will help to establish a map or timeline of rises or falls in levels of human security and stability.

 

Elections and violence 

 

A central goal of many donor programs in the developing world is the promotion of democratic norms and institutions. Freely contested elections are the cornerstone of democratic reform, and are seen as the crowning event of democracy and governance programs. The period of mobilization for an election, however, is fraught with potential for upheaval and instability, as numerous examples of election-associated civil unrest, violence, and oppression have shown. Transitional societies are usually extremely vulnerable and have difficulty recovering from calamity or crisis.[67] To decrease the likelihood of upheaval, and ensure that communities have a degree of resilience allowing them to recover from any setbacks, it is imperative that a base level of human security exists before elections are held. Immediate measures to bolster human security, strengthen communities, and introduce incremental local level democratic reforms will help decrease fragility and pave the way for national elections.[68]

 

The high propensity for disruption that accompanies political contests is apparent from the 1992 elections in Angola. After many years of war, the high expectations in the election run-up increased the hope and tension experienced by politicians and ordinary citizens. People were quick to respond when these hopes were dashed, and frustration was vented through violence. From a practical perspective, the chaos in Luanda was most likely exacerbated by the presence of large number of weapons and armed supporters in the capital. However, from a psychological angle, the city had experienced the most intensive psychological and logistical build-up to the elections, and was therefore the most affected by the collapse of the process. In this regard, we see that although a charged atmosphere and elevated expectations may result in a high voter turnout (91% of registered voters participated in the 1992 elections), the potential for unrest rises correspondingly. From a monitoring perspective, tracking high expectationsin the run-up to elections might provide warnings of areas prone to a sudden shift in human security.

 

Inequality

 

 

Inequality serves as a broad-brush indicator of community cohesiveness or tensions, painting an interesting, if slightly generalized, picture of a society as a whole. Studies have shown that violent conflict is most likely to occur along lines of horizontal inequality, or between similar groups or individuals with different accesses to resources and power.[69] In Angola, the eruption of violence after the 1992 elections can be explained in terms of horizontal inequality: while political leaders went head to head, people of a shared socio-economic status (the urban poor) turned upon each other based on assumed political affiliation as determined by ethnicity. Similar horizontal fractures are common as displaced newcomers and settled residents vie for access to jobs and natural resources. A study of vertical inequality, or inequality between social classes, helps to assess vulnerability, identifying those groups who are the most at risk within a society. Protracted conflict heightens degrees or impressions of inequality along both the horizontal and vertical axes, and the overlap of these inequalities results in one especially vulnerable group.

 

Although reliable quantitative data on Angola is scarce, available information and anecdotal reports point to high inequality and widespread poverty.The elite —the top politicians, businessmen with multinational interests, and foreign residents—control vast amounts of wealth, but more than 60% of Angolans live below the poverty line, with 82% classified as poor.[70] The rural poor are at the very bottom of the social ladder, and face much less access to resources than their urban counterparts.

 

Vertical inequality in Angola is increasing, with the poorest 10% of the population suffering a 59% decrease in income between 1995 and 1998, while wealthy residents saw their assets increase by 44%.[71] A 1998 UNDP report on poverty in Africa states that Angola’s poverty gap, or amount needed to raise the poor to the poverty line, was 38% of the current national income, relatively high in comparison with other countries.[72] As expected, poverty negatively affects human security in terms of community, with more effort expended on basic survival than community participation, growth, or cohesion. The poor are the most susceptible to disease and conflict, and are the least able to recover from external shocks or upheaval. 

 

 

Urban/Rural Divide

 

Angola’s most glaring wealth disparity is between the rural and urban sectors. This inequality is aggravated by the war, with the violence ravaging the countryside, preventing farmers from accessing their fields, and disrupting critical market links between place of production and point of sale for rural goods. Peasants are cut off from their land by displacement or threat of attacks, and less than 4% of arable land was under commercial or subsistence production in 2000.[73] Although the vast majority of official national revenue comes from the sale of oil, an estimated 75% of the population depends on farming or agricultural products for their livelihood. Not surprisingly, agriculture receives sizably less government support than the oil sector, and agricultural output in recent years has fallen faster than any other sector except services.[74]

 

The desperate state of the rural poor does not imply that urban residents are wealthy. Luanda may host wealthy expatriate workers, merchants, politicians and diplomats, but the majority of the city’s residents live in utter destitution.[75] Recent arrivals inhabit cement shacks or huts in the expansive shantytowns around the city center – shantytowns that grow daily as more people seek refuge from instability in the rural areas. While the government subsidizes petroleum products, water, and power, these subsidies mainly benefit the upper income classes who have access to cars, municipal water, and electricity. The poor, on the other hand, must purchase fresh water at a higher price than gasoline.[76] Although the urban elites rely on imported food and goods purchased at the official exchange rate, most people buy their staples through the parallel informal market system, or candonga, and pay black market prices. Infrastructure improvements targeting the poor are few, and raw sewage, lack of running water, and intermittent electricity are facts of life for Luanda’s poor.

 

This inequality among the poor is accentuated by skewed government spending, with an estimated 45% of the national budget going to the war effort.[77] National spending on social services is sparse and focused on the more vocal and visible urban constituencies, as is apparent in the figures reflecting access to health care and sanitation.[78] Almost all of Angola’s 600-700 doctors reside in Luanda, and few of the 1.3 hospital beds for every 1,000 people are in rural areas. [79] According to the World Bank, the percent of the rural population with access to sanitation has decreased by half, from 16% in 1982-1985 to 8% in 1990-1996, while urban access has risen from 27% to 34% in the same period.[80]

 

Winners and losers

 

There are always people who stand to make a profit in situations of conflict, hardship, or disaster. The stakeholders accruing benefits in the Angolan conflict include the military and political elite, diamond and oil investors, private security firms, and merchants and traders willing to take the risk of transporting or smuggling goods. These economic “winners” often also hold political power, making them even more unlikely to settle for a negotiated compromise of power-sharing or peace.[81] The winner/loser dynamic introduces a new level of inequality further perpetuated by continuing chaos or violence, with one group continuously gaining from the losses or suffering of another. From this perspective, conflict will only end when there are few spoils left worth fighting over, or when the two sides have reached an impassable stalemate. In the case of mineral rich nations such as Angola, where the diamond and oil trade remain highly lucrative, the likelihood of the so-called winners laying down their struggle seems unlikely.

 

Erosion of Authority and Community Structures

 

 

Declining importance of traditional social structures is a common aspect of modernization as people move from places with strong familial and communal support networks to areas of greater economic opportunity. The departure of the young can disrupt the transfer of knowledge from one generation to the next, resulting in diminished authority of elders and respect for traditional hierarchies. Conflict and stress accelerate the erosion of authority structures as people are forcibly up-rooted, families separated, and traditional practices hindered. Coping or survival strategies are more likely to focus on the individual or the small unit once the larger community ties have fallen into disarray. Inge Tvedten points to this pattern of social transformation in Angola:

 

[T]he traditional safety net represented by the extended family, the village, the city neighborhood, and rural-urban links has changed dramatically in character. Also, traditional relations between men and women have changed. The outcome seems to be that the household as the core social unit has been weakened and that people are to a larger extent left to their own destiny and coping strategies. Traditional institutions like the headmen (sobas), elder’s councils, and various associations that used to be important for solving conflicts between family members, neighbors, friends, and other social groups have also largely disintegrated and left a sociocultural vacuum.[82]

 

The erosion of authority structures brings a decrease in status for the elder generations and the disintegration of established support systems. International mental health expert Desjarlais explains that conflict and dislocation “can obliterate generations of practical cultural knowledge,” leading to the loss of critical information about survival practices and livelihoods.[83] Oxfam Great Britain found evidence of the detrimental effects of this knowledge gap in a health study in Angola’s Benguela Province:

 

Frequent references to the loss of the knowledge of traditional practices and herbal remedies which the elders have held for centuries are rooted in similar concerns about traditional health-care systems, threatened by family separation, economic hardship, and a lack of opportunities to pass on knowledge.[84]

 

Participants in the Oxfam research project felt that their health was jeopardized because they were no longer privy to the ways of their elders. The eradication of such transmission between generations affects the social fabric of communities, weakening ties between generations and undermining support networks. Resilience to shock and psychosocial strength is diminished if one generation is no longer able to learn from the experiences, coping strategies, knowledge and history of the previous generation.

Severing of urban-rural ties

 

Protracted civil conflict disrupts the urban-rural links that typically withstand even processes of modernization and urbanization. In many countries, families divided between the city and country make exchanges of food and money, and urban migrants often make yearly or seasonal visits home. Such remittances help to keep the flow of people, information, and commodities open. In Angola, however, the war has destroyed most urban-rural links, including transportation and communications, and movement between the two sectors can be difficult and dangerous.[85] Migrants have replicated community structures in the urban musseques, but the loss of inter-generational knowledge and community relations in rural areas has been severe.

Emergency Health Indicators

 

 

Basic health statistics provide a great deal of information on the security, resilience, and cohesion of a community. This is particularly true in periods of extreme stress, such as complex humanitarian emergencies. High rates of malnutrition and morbidity indicate an inability to withstand external shocks or to recover from setbacks. The prevalence of infectious disease also points to inadequate physical living conditions, such as poor sanitation, lack of primary care facilities, and limited knowledge regarding disease prevention. The physical and emotional burden of the HIV/AIDS epidemic places a particularly heavy toll on communities that are often already dealing with poverty or upheaval, and brings further erosion of kinship and community support structures.

 

Health indicators are difficult to measure in the context of conflict and crisis. Methodological data is often inadequate or lacking, as are demographic and baseline studies. To be most useful as interpretative or predictive tools, health indicators should be measured against other chronological events, political conditions, or natural occurrences. For instance:

 

·         Rates of infectious disease are likely to surge or decline in conjunction with conflict and upheaval.

·         Improvements in public health may follow the signing of a peace accord and the subsequent decline in aggravating factors such as population movements and violence in food-producing areas.

·         Rising malnutrition may point to an imminent humanitarian collapse.

·         Higher rates of malnutrition or infectious disease may not immediately follow the resumption of conflict, as the repercussions of protracted food insecurity will appear gradually.

·         Deaths as a direct result of violence will clearly peak in regions and periods of intense fighting.

·         Outbreaks of diseases caused by extended lapses in access to micronutrients or vaccinations point to a previous or on-going breakdown of the health system.[86]

 

Attention to such signs enables targeted and rapid interventions. If health indicators are to be used as effective predictive and/or interpretative tools, a baseline assessment needs to be conducted early and monitored over time for sudden changes or the gradual emergence of danger signs. The following examples from Angola show the potential value of these indicators for a human security assessment.

Basic health conditions in Angola

An assessment of health indicators must begin with an overview of accessible health care and known statistics.[87] In many contexts, basic information regarding disease and mortality may be difficult to acquire. In impoverished or war-torn countries, for instance, many deaths are never reported, as many people live far from any health facility or registering authority. For instance, only 30% of Angolans were thought to have access to even the most basic health care facilities as of the mid-1990s.[88] In the late 1980s, only 46 out of 146 districts had a doctor in residence, with a total of 738 physicians for the entire country. More than two-thirds of these doctors were foreign, and most of these were Cubans who departed during the Cuban exodus in the early 1990s. Almost all the remaining doctors are based in Luanda and work in private clinics inaccessible to the vast majority of the population.[89] Hospitals and public clinics suffer from a serious dearth of medicines, including such basic supplies as aspirin. As a result, very few people bother to visit the health facilities, even when seriously ill.[90]

 

Luanda’s health infrastructure is by far the best in the country. In the mid-1990s, the city had seven hospitals, 32 health centers, and 136 health service posts. Even with this comparatively advanced infrastructure, only limited primary health services were available, and most health posts were difficult to access for those in the poorest areas of the city. Immunization rates for the capital were less than 30%, and 80% of mothers interviewed were unaware of the benefits of vaccination.[91] It is not therefore surprising that the city has seen high rates of malaria, polio, cholera, tuberculosis, and meningitis. Many characteristics of life in Luanda are common to other Angolan urban centers, including over-crowding, poor sanitation, and lack of safe drinking water. Although details on health indicators in other areas are lacking, it is possible to make rough comparisons based on what is known about Luanda. As the capital has the most extensive health care system in the country, we can infer that human security based on health indicators in other cities, especially in densely populated areas with poor sanitation, is likely to be the same or worse. 

 

Infectious diseases

 

Large-scale population movements frequently act as conduits for disease. The rate and prevalence of infectious diseases can serve either as a warning of decreasing human security or as a symptom of an existing crisis. Numerous cases of communicable illnesses tax a community’s coping mechanisms, decrease their mobility, and place extra burdens on caregivers. The sudden resurgence of rare or previously unknown diseases stands as a “red flag” indicator within the human security framework, signally a serious decline in community well-being or the total collapse of preventative health care.

 

 

 

The erosion of preventative health care and the aggravating factors of conflict and poverty have enabled diseases that were eliminated from most parts of the world to make inroads in Angola. In spring 1999, Angola was the scene of the world’s worst polio outbreak in a decade, with more than 1,000 people contracting the disease. The country has one of the highest leprosy rates in the world.[92] Sleeping sickness, all but eradicated over a decade ago, has become endemic in Malanje and Uíge Provinces.[93] Scabies has been reported in some areas, and MSF-France contained a potentially large-scale meningitis outbreak in Huambo Province in 2000.[94] While all communities are affected by the spread of communicable diseases, the weakened status and poorer sanitary conditions of displaced populations means that these groups face higher rates of morbidity and disease.[95] 

 

HIV/AIDS inflicts a new pattern of damage on communities, attacking the most economically productive and physically able. Grandparents are left to raise the young, parents see their children die in the prime of their lives, and villages are decimated. UNAIDS lists the adult (15-49 years) rate of infection in Angola at 2.78% in 2000. Regular surveys of pregnant women or high-risk populations are not possible, but the figures from neighboring countries, including areas that directly border Angola, show rates of infection at 10-20% or higher.[96] The higher regional rates, regular cross-border population movements, and prevalence of military activity imply that Angola’s national rate is probably underestimated. With limited information on prevalence by province, age group, gender, or profession it is difficult to design successful monitoring and education programs. However, efforts to increase the number of sentinel sites and expand local involvement in intervention campaigns will help curtail the spread of the disease, and provide more information on HIV/AIDS thereby improving its effectiveness as a human security indicator.

 

Injuries

 

Information on the rate or nature of injuries provides an important window into conditions faced by local communities. Some injuries stem directly from war-related violence. For instance, in comparing the first six months of 1998 to the same period in 1999, the number of wounds from gunshot and explosives treated by MSF personnel in Cuito rose by a factor of 27.[97] Little further analysis is needed to understand that conflict intensified in the Cuito region in this period. Other causes of injuries may be less obvious, and may indicate changes in food security, levels of desperation, or shifts in war strategy. Landmine injuries around Cuito in 1994/1995 show the potential usefulness of such interpretations. In late 1994, most landmine accidents occurred while people were foraging for food. Several months later, more people were hurt by exploding mines while cultivating fields, and the total number of landmine-related injuries had declined.[98]This shift in reported injuries could indicate several possible scenarios. Hostilities in the area may have ceased or abated, allowing people to reap their harvests and move from scavenging to harvesting. Food security might have improved due to a successful harvest, seasonal shift, or increased safety in rural areas. From a less optimistic perspective, people may have fled the area, thereby decreasing the overall casualty rate.

 

 

 

 

Mortality

 

The mortality rates in a country or region are one of the best reflections of community resilience or vulnerability. Based on studies of humanitarian disasters, a crude mortality rate (CMR) of greater than one person per 10,000 people/day signals a very serious situation, whereas a CMR greater than two people per 10,000 day is an emergency, and greater than five per 10,000/day is a major catastrophe.[99] While compiling these figures might be possible in settings such as internationally serviced and monitored refugee camps, it is extremely difficult to track mortality in the general population of a war-torn country. Furthermore, these figures refer to deaths from starvation and disease, and do not take into account the effects of increased deaths from violence on community cohesion. Under ideal conditions, planners would be able to compare mortality rates to key events (such as the signing of ceasefires, outbreaks of violence, population movements), and use these retrospective correlations to make predictions based on present or future trends. But, as the case of Angola demonstrates, specific information is often only available for limited periods and places, and subsequent conclusions regarding shifts in human security are piecemeal.

 

In Angola, the return to conflict in both 1992 and 1998 brought extremely high levels of mortality. Between May and October 1993, for instance, the UN estimated that as many as 1,000 people were dying per day from conflict, starvation, and disease.[100] Information on how these numbers break down by area, cause of death, or demographics is not available, though inferences can be made in some cases. One example is from June 1993, when the mortality rate from malnutrition at Luanda’s central Josina Machel hospital reached 70%,[101] most likely reflecting large numbers of IDPs reaching Luanda in extremely poor health. Following this logic, it can be assumed that mortality from malnutrition was higher in outlying areas, as the weakest members of communities would be unable to reach the urban centers or hospitals. While methodologically imperfect, this sort of extrapolation is often the only available method of predicting the conditions faced on the ground. Once human security assessment mechanisms are in place, it may be possible to gather more localized and specific information on mortality rates.

 

Angola is believed to have very high rates of maternal mortality, a trend that correlates directly to low human security. Maternal mortality is difficult to measure under the conditions of instability that perpetrate this trend, and there are no readily available reliable statistics for Angola. An accurate study requires a large sample of women and the lack of a central death registry in most developing countries and complex emergencies requires that primary interviews he held in insecure settings. Families may be reluctant to discuss such sensitive topics.

Malnutrition

 

Malnutrition is a highly effective indicator for human security because it is created and influenced by a diverse range of underlying causes, each with powerful ramifications for individual and collective well-being. These causes can include food security, intra-household access to food, season variations, the care environment, levels of disease within a community, and access to water, sanitation, and health care.[102]

 

Nutrition is extremely sensitive to the success or failure of harvests in regions of subsistence agriculture.[103] Malnutrition will decrease after a harvest season, peaking again just before the next year’s harvest as food stores run low. Infections also increase susceptibility to malnutrition, and vice versa. Repeating cycles of seasonal malnutrition or frequent disease indicate low resilience to shock. Communities prone to infection and malnutrition are unlikely to recover from a poor harvest, destruction of fields, loss of able-bodied adults, or unexpected migration. Seasonal fluctuations in nutritional status also point to low levels of community welfare, as the population as a whole lacks sufficient means to smooth consumption over the course of the year and maintain a stable health status. Under ideal conditions, a community would be strong enough to support its weakest members, thereby decreasing the prevalence or extent of malnutrition.

 

In the mid-1990s, the documented rate of malnutrition for children under five years in Angola ranged between 20% and 40%. Hospital records show that 50% of child deaths were attributable to malnutrition.[104] Although varying from one region to the next, the country’s overall level of malnutrition was still extremely high in 2000, with an estimated 60% of displaced people and 40% of residents malnourished.[105] These figures point to low levels of human security, but are difficult to interpret without more information regarding breakdown by region or correlation to circumstances.

 

A more illustrative example of the link between nutrition and human security comes from the highland city of Malanje in the late 1990s. Renewed fighting following the collapse of the Lusaka Accords caused the withdrawal of international relief agencies in early 1999. When MSF was able to return to the city six months later, they found extremely high rates of malnutrition and chronic food insecurity. Severe malnutrition was estimated at 15% and global malnutrition at 31% among both IDPs and residents, compared to 0.4% and 2.4% two years earlier.[106] Food was available in the city’s markets, but sky-high prices put even basic commodities beyond the reach of most residents. Limited planting had occurred around the city, but cultivation was impossible due to the fierce fighting at the city’s perimeter and the threat of new landmines. Lack of access to food was further compounded by the fear of many residents to leave their homes due to the repeated shelling of markets and proximity of the conflict. As a result, “pockets of starvation” developed in the poorer areas of the city, with residents’ susceptibility to disease exacerbated by the lack of medicine and sanitation.[107]

 

 The sharp rise in malnutrition in Malanje in the first half of 1999 illustrates the precarious balance of food aid, harvests, and market prices and the effects of shifts in this balance on vulnerable populations. Should one of these factors shift, such as the price of basic goods or access to fields, the nutritional status of large segments of the community is thrown into jeopardy. The intensity of the conflict in the Malanje area and subsequent cessation of relief flights and aid activities resulted in a total collapse of food security in 1999. This collapse was reflected in the extremely high rates of malnutrition, and indicates a low level of resilience and functioning community coping mechanisms. Malanje was host to very high malnutrition rates, but this was not an isolated situation. In Cuito, for instance, attendance in intensive feeding programs almost tripled between the first half of 1998 and the same period in 1999.[108] Although largely anecdotal, evidence from these regions demonstrates the relevance of malnutrition as a central indicator in assessing a community’s level of human security.

 

Violence Against Non-Combatants 

 

 

The use of violence against civilians directly correlates to community well-being and security. People are less likely to build constructive relationships under conditions of fear, and participation in group activities or local organizations is unlikely when personal survival is of paramount concern. Trade and economic activity decreases in the absence of trust, specialization, and exchange. Violence often leads to displacement, and people are forced to abandon their assets and bases of production. It is difficult to quantify violence against civilians directly, and a better assessment of this indicator comes from examining combatants’ strategies against civilians.

 

Angola’s warring parties have never sought to spare civilians.[109] Some tactics, such as the bombing of markets and mining of peasants’ fields, are intentionally designed to heighten instability and destroy livelihood systems. Other methods of warfare, such as the shelling of suburbs known to be rebel strongholds, simply fail to differentiate between combatants and the non-combatants in their midst. UNITA has forcibly relocated rural inhabitants to government held cities in order to “burden the government with humanitarian responsibilities and to detract from the government’s military response.”[110] In other instances, however, flight is prevented to maintain access to the populations as a source of food, recruits, and sexual partners. Both UNITA and the Angolan army (FAA) have engaged in systematic looting of food reserves and other assets, particularly in rural areas. Weapons designed to maximize casualties and terror, such as landmines, cluster bombs, and phosphorous bombs, have been employed by both sides at various periods over the course of the war.  

 

Tracking the changes in tactics used by combatants is one way to assess violence against civilians as an indicator of human security. In Angola, the intensification of fighting after 1998 was accompanied by an increase in the direct and brutal targeting of civilians, signaling a decline in the human security of communities in or near the battle zones.[111] Forced displacement was often accompanied by punishment levied against those who refused or were unable to flee, and forced conscription increased.[112] Tactics became increasingly destructive, targeting livelihoods as well as lives: in late 1999 and early 2000, for instance, the government engaged in several “scorched earth” offenses, burning entire fields and villages.[113] Direct and individualized violence against civilians also appeared to rise after the collapse of the Lusaka Accords. MSF health centers reported more patients seeking treatment for mutilations or amputated limbs, and rape by the armed forces became increasingly common. A woman from Bié described the rise in sexual violence to an MSF worker:

 

Before, the FAA did not used to rape women. They have started with this war [post December 1998]. Single or married women, it doesn’t matter. They break into houses, tell the man to leave, threatening them at gunpoint and then they rape the woman.[114]

 

 

The intentional destruction of kinship and communal systems through tactics of war (as evident in the rising reports of rapes perpetrator by government troops) has extremely negative implications for levels of human security. Despite these atrocities, evidence from Angola shows that some situations of violence and upheaval actually bring communities together for support and protection. Due to the nature of humanitarian crises, however, there is little detailed information on the coping strategies developed in these periods of high stress. From the humanitarian perspective, increased suffering of civilians is very likely a precursor to a population exodus, medical emergencies, or food shortages, and donor agencies should respond to these signals before such crises erupt.  The adoption of the human security framework and requisite tracking of indicators may enable international agencies to better interpret these situations and to develop appropriate response mechanisms to provide support. 

 

Forced Conscription and Use of Child Soldiers

 

 

The sudden or forceful disruption of communities and families is one of the most destructive aspects of war. The forced recruitment of children strikes a community where it is most vulnerable, and directly influences levels of hope for the future.[115] If children are voluntarily entering into an armed struggle, then they most likely face an extreme dearth of alternative options, such as education or economic activities. Military or political leaders may have glorified the war in such a way that it appeals to marginalized or vulnerable members of society. Likewise, forced conscription of soldiers or guerrillas, regardless of their age, results in high insecurity and low levels of community cohesion. These trends are likely to differ based on region, population group, and time period, and detailed information is rarely available. From a human security perspective, however, tracking changes in the use of child soldiers and rates of forced conscription will help to predict the strength or weakness of given communities and the propensity for conflict or collapse.

 

Both sides in the Angolan struggle have employed child soldiers and used forced conscription, especially when official recruitment strategies fail to attract the required numbers of volunteers. Such shortages are predictable in protracted conflict or after the failure of promising peace accords. As tensions rise and stability decreases, conscription drives and recruitment by force intensify, signally both the resumption of military campaigns and rising uncertainty for civilians. In late 1998, for instance, as the Lusaka peace process unraveled, Angolan authorities warned men of military age against leaving the country.[116] According to Human Rights Watch, in mid-1999 the government—faced with mounting resistance from UNITA and a lack of recruits—began to press-gang refugees into military service and to make cross-border raids into neighboring countries to round up young men in Angolan refugee camps. Police also made rounds through Luanda, “indiscriminately hunting youths for conscription.”[117] Reports of similar round-ups are numerous, with boys as young as fourteen picked up near their schools. Underage recruitment is particularly prevalent in UNITA zones, with reports of UNITA soldiers grabbing young people from markets and loading them onto night flights to the military fronts.[118] Households headed by children and children lacking the support of family or community systems, such as orphans and street children, are especially susceptible to forced recruitment. Once pressed into service, young female conscripts are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse and unwanted pregnancy.

 

Crime

 

 

Crime directly affects human security by disrupting economic life, networks of trust, and freedom of movement and association, aggravating food shortages, contributing to uncertainty about the future, and making the reintegration of former combatants into society more difficult. Reliable crime statistics are rarely gathered in societies plagued by conflict or lacking effective law enforcement or judicial systems. The limited available information and anecdotal evidence does point to patterns that may help formulate baselines to look for in other contexts. For instance, sharp increases in crime in countries such as South Africa and El Salvador imply that crime is likely to rise rapidly – or, as some argue, simply become more visible during or following transitions to democratic rule. Crime also often accompanies rapid economic – growth, as the wealth of the upper classes becomes more visible and inequality between the haves and the have-nots increases.

 

Although useful for broad international comparisons, national crime rates do not provide enough information to assess the impact of crime on given communities. Rather, crime data is needed that differentiates between rich and poor, men and women, one ethnicity and another, and urban and rural residents. In general, a rise in crime indicates dropping community cohesion and falling human security, though crime may be either a cause or a symptom of this demise. As a caveat, however, it is important to keep in mind that crimes are only reported if there is a certain degree of faith in the police or justice system. This means that an apparent “rise in crime” may instead be a rise in crimes reported, which could indicate rising human security due to greater trust in the rule of law.

 

Criminal acts driven by economic need are a type of coping strategy. Groups or individuals with the lowest levels of human security are the most likely to engage in crime. In Angola, crime has increased throughout the war era as people struggle to make ends meet in urban slums and remote areas experiencing food shortages. Acts of crime and banditry have also been associated with the cantonment of soldiers in demobilization camps.[119] Recently demobilized soldiers have few available income-generating opportunities, and often turn to crime out of frustration and in order to survive. Police forces have few resources to combat crime in places such as Angola, and the percent of crimes reported to these under-staffed forces is likely to be low.

 

Summary

 

Communities form the social bases of societies, and provide a source of strength and identity to their members. Civil war has raged in Angola for decades, and communities have been re-defined, re-assigned, and relocated numerous times in the process. Where some communities have been destroyed, however, others have arisen. The burgeoning of the musseques, for instance, has resulted in heterogeneous urban communities and greater ethnic integration. But as was seen in the aftermath of the 1992 elections, even these apparently stable urban neighborhoods are not immune to violent social upheaval.

 

The examination of community in Angola provides a baseline of conditions likely to be relevant in a range of contexts. The case study also raises important considerations for areas needing further input, attention, and examination in future assessments. Certain communities may disintegrate in the face of war, but others are more likely to pull together to work for their survival. A greater focus on the perseverance of positive linkages under adverse conditions may help broaden understanding of collective coping mechanisms, and identify potential strategies for mending frayed community relations. 

 

 

Part IV: Future

Box 2.2 Remaining areas for consideration from a human security perspective   Societal relations: The degree of ethnic, religious, or racial tension has a strong correlation to the strength and stability of a community. Inequality: Societies with greater inequality have lower levels of overall human security, and those communities with the least access to resources and income are the most vulnerable.  Authority and community structures: Crisis and humanitarian collapse often erode traditional authority and community support structures, thereby decreasing human security. Health indicators: The well-being of a community can be measured by the health of its individual members, prevalence of infectious diseases, and rate of global malnutrition. Violence against non-combatants: Increases in the use of violence against non-combatants point to decreasing levels of human security and likely intensification of crisis. Forced conscription/child soldiers: The threat of forced conscription instills fear and greatly         lowers human security. Communities that lose large numbers of children to the armed forces have low levels of security and little hope for the future.  Crime: Rising crime rates point to falling human security.

 

To feel secure in their homes and communities, individuals need to have faith in the continuity and durability of certain factors.  Positive linkages must exist between the past, present, and future, and the future must contain hope. Although a sense of the future is difficult to gauge and quantify, the Angola case identified certain proxy indicators that reflect impressions of the future: food security, expressed or implied optimism, coping strategies, participation in civil society, and birth and fertility rates.

 

While most of these indicators are relevant in a wide range of contexts, others may apply only in conditions of civil war or internal strife. Country-specific human security assessments will add indicators to this list based on the unique situation in each context. In Angola, for instance, food security is a central issue, as availability of and access to food have repeatedly affected families and communities and shaped their psychological responses to living with uncertainty. In other countries, an equally important consideration might be access to land or the threat of natural disasters.

 

Food Security

 

 

Food security is defined as both the availability of and access to food. In times of complex emergencies or natural disasters, people may be unable to access an otherwise ample food supply, resulting in food insecurity for the individual, family, or community. From a psychosocial perspective, adequate food security implies that people have confidence that their food sources will be sufficient to meet present and future needs. Food security can be augmented through a strong community or kinship network involving mutual insurance schemes, community pooling of labor and/or produce, or a high rate of inter-household transfers. As city residents have little control over cultivation decisions, food security comes through stable prices and consistent availability, functioning markets, availability of cash or goods for barter, and employment or other sources of income. While food security does not guarantee a positive sense of the future, it is very difficult to possess optimism when food security is lacking, as planning is curtailed and the focus shifts to immediate survival.

 

Food security in Angola

 

Protracted conflict in a society with a large agricultural base disrupts and often destroys food security, decreasing human security as well as political and economic stability. In Angola, the destruction of roads, bridges, and railways has severed rural/urban market links, preventing the exchange of crucial agricultural inputs and outputs. Most of the existing agriculture in the country is at the subsistence level, but the presence of landmines and threat of rural attacks has curtailed even subsistence farming in many areas.[120] Wealthier residents of Luanda and other port cities rely heavily on imports, but these goods are priced well beyond the reach of most urban dwellers.[121] High unemployment – 45% or higher – and the resulting lack of income hinders people’s access to available food in Angola.[122] Barter has become extremely important in many areas, both urban and rural, and Luanda’s massive informal market, Roque Santerio, is one of the largest in sub-Saharan Africa.[123] Engaging in barter in conflict zones has its share of hazards, as people risk landmines, attacks, and theft as they transport tradable goods from one area to another.

 

International food aid to Angola has long played a major role in meeting domestic demand. The FAO estimates that 10% of the Angolan population was dependent on food aid in 2001, and the organization’s Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS) predicted 1,859,914 people in need of food assistance in 2000/2001.[124] Angola’s total food needs stood at 753,000 tons of grain for 2000/2001. 56% of this shortfall, or 420,000 tons, was to be met through commercial imports, while the remaining 333,000 tons were requested as international assistance.[125]

 

Prior to the 1992 elections, troops arriving in cantonment areas for demobilization found food to be in short supply, and discontentment spread rapidly through the ranks. UN agencies quickly distributed rations to the cantonment points, and made certain that IDPs and refugees had adequate food supplies. The WFP also provided rations to the 30,000 electoral officers at 6,000 polling stations. Philippe Borel, the WFP director of operations in Angola at the time, explained: “When people were hungry, we delivered food; when soldiers were rioting, we delivered food; whenever there were problems, we delivered food. And the food helped settle those situations.”[126] The international community recognized that elections would not run smoothly without stability, and the fastest way to ensure this stability was through food distributions. This awareness of the importance of a reliable food supply underpins the link between food security, stability, and a positive sense of the future.

Responses to food insecurity

 

Individual and collective responses to a lack of food demonstrate how people weigh their present survival against planning for the future. Actions taken in desperation usually display a high discount rate, and imply little hope for the future. In the besieged city of Cuito in late 1993 there were reports of hospital patients and staff eating ants, grass, and leaves in the hospital courtyard. Common foods during the siege included a glue-like paste made from banana leaves and roots, dried mushrooms, mice, rats, and toasted maize.[127] Reflecting on the return to war in 1999, Amnesty International reports: “People in the besieged cities of Huambo, Cuito and Malange were reportedly eating seeds, roots, cats and dogs in order to survive.”[128] While the shift to wild food collection and the consumption of unusual items already serves as a warning of food shortages, increased monitoring is needed in order to be aware of the shift to more desperate and potentially more destructive coping mechanisms.

 

Although the collection of wild foods and consumption of domestic animals implies low food security, this behavior does not directly impinge upon prospects for the future. A more severe response to food shortages is the ingestion of seeds that would otherwise be saved for planting. Human Rights Watch reported that seed consumption was common in Malanje in 1993 and 1994 when relief organizations and UN flights were unable to land due to shelling by UNITA.[129] Seed consumption is a direct indication of falling human security, but this behavior can be difficult to track.

Another method of coping with food insecurity is theft of produce and looting of fields. Inge Tvedten describes the rise in petty theft of food:

 

Finally, for many Angolans beset by hunger, stealing food has been perceived as the only way to survive. The main targets have been fields, gardens, and kraals in the country or shops, delivery trucks, and warehouses in the cities. In many areas particularly affected, the boundary between what is considered right and wrong in this respect has changed.[130]

 

While this response does not have the physical repercussions of going without food or the dire implications for household planting of eating seed stores, it does have extremely negative repercussions on community relations, especially in close-knit rural communities. Theft from within a community implies very low levels of hope for the future, as people are willing to destroy bonds of trust and risk losing their social standing in order to meet immediate needs. Furthermore, people are less likely to risk planting when there is a high risk of theft, and may harvest prematurely to prevent looting from their fields.[131]

Batidas

 

The most extreme response to food insecurity in Angola is evident in the batida phenomenon, a practice that began during the repeated sieges of the highland cities in the 1990s. The word batida refers to a group of people, usually numbering several hundred, who would venture out en masse from a besieged city in search of food or firewood.[132] These foraging parties would cross the warring frontlines, and usually traverse areas known to contain landmines. Casualty rates from mine explosions and snipers were extremely high, but, as journalist Mercedes Sayagues reported from Cuito in 1994, the spoils of the journey were essential to the city’s survival:

 

Sometimes [the batidas] lost one-third of the party in fighting—but they returned with maize, fellao, and potatoes for the starving city. People say piles of corpses are rotting in the countryside along the paths taken by the batidas.[133]

 

The batidas would increase in size and distance traveled as food became scarcer in the besieged cities. A woman who took part in several batidas from Cuito described her experience to Human Rights Watch:

 

We were so hungry that we had to get out of the city and find food. We tried to do this silently as we already knew the paths. The danger was that UNITA had laid mines on these. In July [1993] I was with a group which entered into a newly laid UNITA minefield. Ten died and several injured crawled back. Soldiers came with us to help us find food and provide cover gunfire if UNITA saw us. Usually a batida ended up in gunfights as UNITA also kept a look-out for us, especially when we were heavily laden on our return.  They could then collect and keep or sell to us what they had taken from our dead.[134]

 

 

Similar excursions were common in other besieged cities, such as Malanje, especially after the sporadic relief flights were halted. In late 1993 provincial authorities estimated “that more than 20,000 women and 2,000 men leave the government-controlled area [of Malanje] on an average of two to three times each week,” entering a heavily mined area in search of food.[135]

 

The batida phenomenon calls attention to a more nuanced aspect of human security under the psychosocial domain of the future. The human security implications of the batidas are complex. Engaging in an extremely high-risk behavior implies a low degree of optimism for the future, but the collective aspect of the batidas suggests a high degree of community cohesion. Residents of cities under siege very likely also scavenged for food and fuel on an individual basis, but they joined together to embark on the extremely dangerous nighttime forays. Furthermore, while the batidas point to a high personaldiscount rate, the participants were acting to protect the future of their families and future. How do community mobilization and self-sacrifice for future generations register on a human security matrix? This question will require greater research and analysis as similar incidents become apparent in other circumstances.

 

Gender and food security

 

All members of households or societies do not experience food insecurity in same manner, as reflected by gender-differentiated responses. Household and individual coping strategies demonstrate how individuals weigh their own futures against those of other members of their families or communities. In Angola, gender-specific patterns are immediately apparent in the first stage of reactions to food shortages, namely diet change and food collection.

 

As the primary caregiver, a woman will often prioritize the future health of her husband and children over her own well-being, or may focus more on the nutritional intake of her sons than her daughters. Confirming a trend frequently noted in relief and emergency situations in sub-Saharan Africa, an Oxfam GB study in the Ganda region of Angola’s Benguela Province found that women were the first household members to cut back on their daily food intake in times of hardship. A reduction in children’s meals followed, and a limited variety of foods was available.[136] 

 

The women of Ganda spoke of the need to desenrascar, or scavenge for food, when supplies were low. Figures from Malanje imply that women participated in batidas at a greater rate than men and they make up a greater proportion of the displaced populations in the highland cities. The large number of orphans in Malanje, estimated at 8,000 to 10,000 in 1993, illustrates the consequences of the batida phenomenon, as the mothers of most of these children are believed to have died while searching for food.[137] As women and children are responsible for water collection and most cultivation, they are also more likely to be the victims of landmine casualties close to the home or village.

 

Men confront their own threat of hazards, as they are likely to engage in activities – such as joining militias or engaging in diamond mining or arms smuggling – with high discount rates in order to provide for themselves or their families. While traveling for work or military service, men also face the risk of landmines.

Harvests

 

The timing, planting, and success of harvests relates closely to sense of the future. People are unlikely to expend labor or inputs to plant fields if they do not believe they will be able to reap the harvests. By this logic, widespread planting of a labor-intensive crop implies optimism, while lack of cultivation points to low levels of stability and security. Limited planting or urban gardening lie somewhere between optimism and despair, and may indicate that people are seeking to make the most of limited available resources.[138]

 

Conflict in Angola has repeatedly destroyed harvests that would have otherwise been successful, and the presence of landmines in many areas makes farming highly risky, if not altogether impossible. In the late 1990s, less than 4% of the country’s arable land was under cultivation, implying low levels of both food security and optimism for the future.[139] In order to make effective use of these figures as an index for the future, however, we need to know how they differ by region. Most of the 4% planted in the early 1990s, for instance, was probably in the southwestern areas that have been spared the direct effects of the war. For a more comprehensive human security assessment, it would be useful to know how planting patterns changed over the course of the two ceasefires in the 1990s.

 

Optimism

 

 

Most of the indicators used to assess a sense of the future focus on inverse or negative trends, gauging lack of hope through measures of implied pessimism. Events in the 1992 pre-election period point to unprecedented levels of hope and a desire for peace and change among ordinary citizens. The strong collective commitment to the future appeared to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles, such as the voter registration campaign. The logistics of preparing a largely illiterate and geographically dispersed population with little experience of democracy for a national election were daunting. More than 300,000 refugees remained in neighboring states, and there were over one million Angolans displaced within the country. Many outside observers feared that the time frame for the elections was insufficient to allow for effective preparation, particularly in terms of registration drives and voter education programs.[140] Several months prior to the scheduled election date, a senior UN official said, “Elections will have to take place in September, but it will be a mess.” A UN field representative estimated that it could take up to two years for an accurate registration drive in his province alone.[141] Mass confusion seemed imminent.

 

Despite the formidable obstacles and dire predictions, roughly 4.8 million people, or 92% of eligible voters, signed up to vote between May 20 and August 10, and 5,800 polling stations were organized.[142] The remarkably high turnout of 91% of registered voters is further evidence of the buoyancy in this period.[143] The unexpected voting patterns in many regions also indicated a willingness to take risks in hopes of improving future prospects. In many cases, people will vote for the party or candidate with which they are familiar or for those with ethnic or geographical ties to their region. A 1992 poll in Angola, however, revealed a very different situation, with the electorate preparing to vote outside of their ethnic or regional blocks.[144] The voting results from the election supported these findings, although each of the two main parties did do well in its core region of support. The most surprising evidence comes from the outlying areas, home to roughly 40% of the voters. In the provinces of Lunda Norte and Lunda Sul, for instance, President dos Santos and the MPLA received the vast majority of the votes, even though these areas are hundreds of kilometers from the MPLA heartland and well beyond the reach of government services, support, or political campaigns. The MPLA was also victorious in Kwanza Sul and Huíla, provinces that Savimbi had long claimed belonged to “his” people.[145]  In provinces where the war had been fierce, such as the highland and diamond areas often controlled by UNITA, people may have voted for change, even if this meant going against the rhetoric of UNITA. The departure of these voting trends from the expected pattern points to a high level of consideration for and participation in the country’s political future.  

 

The commitment of the vast majority of Angolans to orchestrate a smooth election and the willingness to take risks in terms of electoral choices heralded extremely high expectations. These expectations were quickly dashed with the outbreak of widespread urban violence and return to full-scale war within two or three months of the elections. The repercussions of this collapse of expectations and loss of hope for peace should not be under-estimated in terms of damage to Angola’s social fabric. Although a second ceasefire followed two years later, the hopes, expectations, and commitment to the future would not match those of the earlier period.   

Coping Strategies

 

 

People employ coping or response mechanisms to survive crisis and hardship and to protect their livelihoods.[146] Insurance strategies are examples of protective responses used regularly, regardless of levels of stress, and might include mixed crop planting or participation in mutual aid organizations. Measures become more pronounced as stress or social pressure increases, and might comprise taking on extra work, selling livestock, or migrating.[147] Discount rates show how coping mechanisms reflect people’s sense of their future. Very risky activities (such as the batidas) demonstrate high discount rates and pessimism, while reversible strategies (such as alternative livelihood strategies like charcoal making) show a lower discount rate and a more positive relationship with the future.  

Conservation and adaptation

 

A brief typology of coping strategies helps to illustrate how people relate to their future. Any form of planting strategies or adaptation of agricultural practices such as more intensive land use, urban gardening, or diversification of crops indicate a continuity of time extending at least until the next harvest. Food storage, on the other hand, points to a slightly less positive view of the future. Storage is undertaken when people do not expect to be able to harvest or procure food through the usual means, or when increased theft from fields or stores is anticipated. Both food storage and shifting farming methods imply low discount rates, as these coping mechanisms involve planning for the future.

Adopting new approaches

 

A second category of response mechanisms is the adoption of activities not normally practiced, such as petty roadside trading, “old fashioned” crafts such as blacksmithing and ceramics, and the development of new industries.[148] Most of these strategies have low discount rates and are easily reversible, but may entail the need to re-evaluate social taboos or personal pride. For example, David Sogge explains, in reference to Angola, that when “herdsman in southern provinces began setting up roadside butcheries, they first had to overcome their disdain for the trade.”[149] Overcoming social stigma is often an important aspect of successful coping mechanisms as people shift from self-reliance to selling their labor or turning to others for help. Extreme strategies such as theft, prostitution, or drug dealing are likely to draw the highest degree of social condemnation, but such judgments may be withheld in periods of extreme hardship. Researchers for the Oxfam Great Britain project in Angola found discrepancies in the social censure of certain activities:

 

the prostitution of young girls to obtain the means to survive, which occurred during the recent years of the war, would now [1994-1998 ceasefire] be considered less socially acceptable, and might be undertaken only as a last resort to acquire means for a household.[150]

 

This finding indicates the shift in community relations in times of crisis. Actions that might bring permanent condemnation in normal times become tolerable, as shifting impressions of the future lead to the adoption of new criteria not only for survival strategies but also for social norms.

 

Coping strategies with very high discount rates show that surviving the present is afforded higher priority than planning for the future. We generally assume that triage within families, desperate measures to procure food, and prostitution consistently point to an almost total loss of hope. But interpreting degrees of desperation inherent in survival strategies requires cultural objectivity: to the western observer, prostitution may seem more extreme than selling livestock, but this may not be the case in pastoral societies where cattle are as the most critical asset. While some generalizations regarding reflected levels of desperation are possible, the reversibility, acceptability, and discount rate of coping strategies should be assessed in each specific situation.

 

Participation in Civil Society

 

 

People are more likely to invest in civil society if they feel that they have a voice and role in shaping the future. This requires a degree of recognition within a community, as well as autonomy to take action as an individual. Social and political leadership affects both the climate of participation, and also the impressions people have of their future. Conditions of intimidation, repression, and fear, for instance, will negatively influence both participation and optimism. In contrast, an environment of tolerance, debate, and respect for human rights breeds optimism and encourages people to mobilize to push for further progress. Civil society organizations can develop in the absence of an open political or social atmosphere, but campaigns and participation are more likely to focus on one issue, such as peace, as opposed to being broad-based and diverse. In Angola, a group of civic organizations have organized to promote peace, but civil society is less robust in other sectors.[151] While issue-specific mobilization makes sense given the ubiquitous nature of the war, the focus on one area is more likely to make people feel that there is not room at the table for the issues or concerns that have galvanized civil society organizations in other countries.

 

Birth and Fertility Rates

 

 

Many factors affect birth and fertility rates, including hope, health and nutrition, contraceptive options, and the agency of women within a given culture or society. In terms of human security and hope for the future, these reproductive indicators must be examined with all of these factors in mind, as high rates can reflect either hope or despair for the future.

 

At first glance, high birth and fertility rates indicate hope within a population. The baby boom in the United States after World War II, for example, clearly points to a state of national optimism following the Allied victory in the war. In the developing world, a high rate of live births and low maternal mortality link to adequate maternal health and nutrition. Populations with high reproductive rates are likely to be relatively settled and stable, thereby registering positive levels of human security in the domains of home and community as well as the future.

 

On the other hand, high birth and fertility rates might indicate low levels of optimism if couples are having large numbers of children as an insurance strategy. This can occur when infant and child mortality is high, as parents expect many of their children to die before adulthood. High birth rates may also indicate a lack of trust in the social or community support network, as parents will raise larger families to ensure that they will be adequately supported in their old age. Following this line of reasoning, high birth rates can be seen as attempts of one generation to pass the insecurity to their offspring, thereby creating an “inter-generational externality” arising from poor impressions of the future.[152] 

 

A survey of birth rates as an indicator of human security must be undertaken with caution. Declining birth rates in much of Western Europe indicate that families who are secure and healthy will often opt to have fewer children. In these contexts, low birth rates often reflect a later age of marriage, expanded career and educational opportunities for women, and careful family planning. In the developing world, however, low birth rates may be a consequence of female malnutrition (resulting in lower fertility or increased miscarriages) or a lack of male partners as a result of war, deadly diseases, or economic out-migration. Families may also opt not to have children due to prevailing poverty, insecurity, or protracted conflict. Low birth rates, therefore, may also be a sign of lack of hope for the future.

 

The correlation between birth rates and sense of the future is less relevant in societies where women have little control over their fertility. Women may wish to have fewer children under conditions of poverty or insecurity, but often have limited access to contraception or the ability to negotiate its use within relationships. In order to understand the connection between women’s personal sentiments regarding the future and the desire to bear children, we would need detailed information on female contraceptive use, abortion, and infanticide. Such data is extremely difficult to come by, especially in poor countries or those experiencing protracted conflict.

 

The available data from Angola is scarce and does not provide information on differences over time or between regions. The UNDP Human Development Report from 2000 lists the total fertility rate for Angola for 1995-2000 at 6.8 children per woman, well above the average for sub-Saharan Africa of 5.5 children. According to same report, however, contraceptive prevalence was at only 8%, implying that Angolan women had little access to modern methods to control their fertility. [153] While the high fertility rate in Angola appears to correlate with low levels of human security and a negative sense of the future, more information on discrepancies between populations is needed. For instance, a survey of birth rates in periods of peace as compared to periods of renewed fighting would point to changes in optimism based on the political climate. Differences between the regions that have been the most and least affected by the war would illustrate the effects of protracted conflict on births; and a study of the birth rates of refugee communities compared to women in settled communities would link dislocation, sense of the future, and reproduction.

 

Summary

 

Individual and collective impressions of the future are critical to understanding a society’s level of human security. A short planning horizon usually accompanies low human security, and people are more likely to engage in activities displaying a high discount rate; risky behavior – such as the batida phenomenon or prostitution – becomes more commonplace. Decisions that do relate to the future, such as planting harvests or having children, may be affected by the same pessimism. By tracking these areas over time, we are able to see how changes in behavior or decision-making reflect levels of hope for the future.

 

Despite the circumstances in Angola over the last 25 years, certain indicators do point to a degree of optimism for the future. While many of these examples come from the period directly prior to the 1992 elections, the observed optimism illustrates that a commitment to building a better society does exist in Angola. A critical question for further research would be to assess how people feel ten years and two failed peace processes later: does this hope still exist, or has it been quelled by the repeating cycles of violence? 

 

 

Endnotes