About the Report

This report offers a framework for institutionalizing security sector 

reform (SSR) within the U.S. government. It is informed by the 

work of the Institute’s Initiative for Security Sector Governance 

and presentations at its June 29–30, 2010, conference, 

“International Policy on Security Sector Governance: Opportunities 

and Gaps.” Since its inception in 2007, the Initiative for Security 

Sector Governance has facilitated the exchange of ideas between 

U.S. officials and their counterparts in other donor capitals and 

among multilateral organizations, nongovernmental organizations, 

the private sector, and local owners of SSR processes. This 

initiative has helped stakeholders in the U.S. government advance 

the SSR agenda.

Colonel Gregory Hermsmeyer, U.S. Air Force, retired from active 

duty in 2010 after twenty-one years of military service. He 

most recently served as director of partnership policy and 

strategy in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for 

Policy, where he was responsible for security cooperation 

policy, budget, and legislative initiatives. For three years 

he also cochaired an interagency SSR working group with 

counterparts from the Department of State and the U.S. 

Agency for International Development. He is now at Deloitte 

Consulting LLP.

The views expressed in this report are solely those of the 

author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Deloitte 

Consulting LLP or the United States Institute of Peace, which 

does not advocate policy positions.

1200 17th Street NW • Washington, DC 20036 • 202.457.1700 • fax 202.429.6063

Special Report 255 October 2010

© 2010 by the United States Institute of Peace. 

All rights reserved.

Gregory A. Hermsmeyer

Institutionalizing 

Security Sector Reform

Options for the U.S. Government

Summary

•	 International donor assistance can make a decisive difference in a partner country’s security 

sector reform (SSR) efforts. To be successful, donors must be able to organize SSR activities 

among disparate ministries and departments in their national capital.

•	 Successful “whole-of-government” SSR efforts are based on a common framework for organizing SSR activities that includes interagency policy guidance; interagency assessment, 

planning and programming, and evaluation; flexible funding mechanisms; interagency 

structures; and human capital.

•	 The U.S. government should apply this institutional framework to better organize its provision of security-related assistance. Institutionalizing SSR in Washington will enable more 

effective support for U.S. country teams and more effective implementation of programs 

in the field. 

•	 Realizing such an institutional framework will make the U.S. government a more effective 

partner and secure a better return on its investments in the security of partner countries. 

The United States has made major strides toward making SSR an institutional priority, but 

much more needs to be done to mainstream SSR in Washington.

Security Sector Reform: An Institutional Framework

Over the past two decades, policymakers and practitioners have come to recognize that 

security and development are fundamentally linked. Development can foster stability and 

help prevent crises and conflicts. At the same time, the single largest obstacle to development is the lack of security: development cannot take place without a safe and secure 

environment for states and their citizens. The security sector reform (SSR) concept is rooted 

in this linkage between security and development and applies a long-term development 

United States Institute of Peace www.usip.org

SPECIAL REPORT

Contents

Recommendations 10

Conclusion 13
2

perspective, with an emphasis on people-centered approaches, local ownership, effective 

governance, and institution building, to traditional security challenges.

SSR has evolved as a discipline since the 1990s, when academic specialists, development 

practitioners, and local actors began to apply principles of democratic governance and 

people-centered approaches to security and justice delivery. The Organisation for Economic 

Cooperation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) offered 

the first common guidance for SSR with the adoption of guidelines for international donors 

in 2004 and publication of a detailed handbook for practitioners in 2006. This guidance 

remains the basis of whole-of-government approaches to SSR today.1

The resulting SSR agenda is constructed using an integrating framework that recognizes 

the security sector as a complex system of systems encompassing security and justice delivery, governance, legal and regulatory frameworks, management systems and processes, and 

civil society oversight. It focuses on building the capacity of the security sector to deliver 

safety, security, and justice for individuals; reduce corruption; and counter illicit criminal 

and terrorist networks. SSR recognizes that increased security capacity must be matched by 

changes in attitudes and behaviors, including greater respect for human rights and the rule 

of law, among security providers. SSR offers a process whereby national leaders can build a 

more effective, sustainable security sector embedded in the rule of law and legitimate in the 

eyes of local populations. Thus, SSR is ultimately a process of change management that any 

country, including the United States and other donor countries, can undertake for itself.2

A fundamental principle of SSR is local ownership. Successful reform requires political 

will for change among governing elites. The national government and local population must 

embrace and lead the reform process for it to succeed. However, donor governments as 

well as international organizations, regional security organizations, and nongovernmental 

organizations can each play a significant supporting role in a partner’s reform programs, 

especially in fragile or postconflict states. International donor assistance can sometimes 

make a decisive difference. One critical element of a successful assistance program is the 

donor’s ability to organize SSR efforts among disparate ministries and departments.

The track record of donor governments in the SSR area has been mixed at the headquarters level, however. Common policy and strategy are often lacking or incomplete in donor 

nation capitals. Analytical tools for assessment and evaluation are largely underdeveloped 

when they exist at all. Assistance plans, programs, and activities in the security sector are 

frequently ad hoc and conducted in isolation from one another. Funding is seldom sufficient or flexible enough to promote comprehensive programs or approaches. Organizations, 

systems, and processes are sometimes structured in ways that hamper rather than promote 

interagency coordination. Finally, headquarters organizations lack adequate numbers of 

trained and experienced SSR experts.

Nevertheless, donor governments have accrued a growing reservoir of knowledge and 

experience in organizing comprehensive approaches to SSR. This accumulated experience 

suggests five common elements that together form a framework for organizing donor government support for SSR3:

•	 interagency policy guidance;

•	 interagency assessment, planning and programming, and evaluation;

•	 flexible funding mechanisms; 

•	 interagency structures; and 

•	 human capital.

This report offers an institutional framework based on these five elements for the 

U.S. government to use in providing security sector assistance to its partners. The report 

assumes that the security of the United States depends in part on how well it helps partner 

The views expressed in this report do not necessarily 

reflect the views of the United States Institute of Peace, 

which does not advocate specific policy positions.

To request permission to photocopy or reprint materials, 

e-mail: permissions@usip.org

About the Institute

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, 

nonpartisan institution established and funded by Congress. 

Its goals are to help prevent and resolve violent conflicts, 

promote post-conflict peacebuilding, and increase conflict 

management tools, capacity, and intellectual capital worldwide. The Institute does this by empowering others with 

knowledge, skills, and resources, as well as by its direct 

involvement in conflict zones around the globe.

Board of Directors

J. Robinson West (Chair), Chairman, PFC Energy, Washington, 

D.C. • George E. Moose (Vice Chairman), Adjunct Professor 

of Practice, The George Washington University, Washington, 

D.C. • Anne H. Cahn, Former Scholar in Residence, American 

University, Washington, D.C. • Chester A. Crocker, James R. 

Schlesinger Professor of Strategic Studies, School of Foreign 

Service, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. • Ikram U. 

Khan, President, Quality Care Consultants, LLC., Las Vegas, 

Nev. • Kerry Kennedy, Human Rights Activist • Stephen D. 

Krasner, Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations at Stanford University • Jeremy A. Rabkin, Professor 

of Law, George Mason University, Arlington, Va. • Judy Van 

Rest, Executive Vice President, International Republican 

Institute, Washington, D.C. • Nancy Zirkin, Executive Vice 

President, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights 

Members Ex Officio

Michael H. Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for 

Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor • James N. Miller, 

Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy •

Ann E. Rondeau, Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy; President, 

National Defense University • Richard H. Solomon, 

President, United States Institute of Peace (nonvoting) 
3

countries meet their basic security needs and how effectively those states provide their 

populations with safety, security, and justice. The report examines progress made to date 

in each of the five areas and identifies gaps remaining within the U.S. government. It also 

offers recommendations for institutionalizing a whole-of-government framework for SSR 

within the U.S. system.

While the U.S. country team at each mission should be the focal point for assistance 

initiatives, and planning at the headquarters level should normally be driven by experts 

in the field, this analysis is conducted primarily from the vantage point of headquarters in 

Washington, D.C. Improving the performance of relevant federal departments and agencies 

in the capital will help those organizations be better prepared to support SSR efforts in the 

field. By getting SSR right in Washington, the U.S. government will also become a more 

effective partner for its local partners and secure a better return on its investments in their 

security.

Interagency Policy Guidance

Donor governments have found that clear and common guidelines are needed for policymakers, planners, and programmers across multiple departments and ministries. Guidance that 

provides shared principles and taxonomy is crucial for creating a collective understanding 

of SSR among civilian and military policymakers and practitioners. It can also foster a better understanding of why improvements in the security sector demand closer coordination 

within and among organizations. Policy guidance can help clarify organizational roles and 

responsibilities as well. 

The United States has provided large amounts of security-related assistance since World 

War II, but activities have tended to be disparate and uncoordinated, and attempts to apply 

the emerging SSR approach have been ad hoc. Although parts of the Department of State, 

the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Department of Defense 

(DOD) were engaged in separate SSR activities, SSR remained largely absent as an interagency policy issue prior to November 2005, when a joint U.S.–United Kingdom workshop on 

SSR was held in Washington. This meeting spurred the creation of an informal interagency 

working group, which was cochaired by State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs (PM), 

USAID’s Office of Democracy and Governance, and the DOD’s Office of Partnership Strategy.4

The group featured regular participation from the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and other departments and agencies, as well as numerous 

bureaus and components within State, USAID, and DOD.

Recognizing that the U.S. government lacked a policy framework for SSR, the first priority for the interagency SSR working group was to develop a common State, USAID, and 

DOD—or “3D”—statement on SSR, which was approved in January 2009 after nearly eighteen months of drafting and coordination. This document drew on the OECD DAC’s Guidelines 

and Handbook on Security System Reform and attempted to translate these international 

standards into a U.S. context. The paper provided a common definition of SSR for the three 

organizations as “the set of policies, plans, programs, and activities that a government 

undertakes to improve the way it provides safety, security, and justice.” It also offered a 

common objective for U.S. assistance to a partner’s security sector: to promote “an effective and legitimate public service that is transparent, accountable to civilian authority, and 

responsive to the needs of the public.”5

The 3D statement provided the three organizations with a common vocabulary and 

understanding of SSR. It fostered a growing understanding in Washington of why traditional train-and-equip programs must be linked horizontally to rule of law and justice sector 

development and vertically to security sector governance and institution building. The paper 

Improving the performance of 

relevant federal departments 

and agencies in the capital will 

help those organizations be 

better prepared to support SSR 

efforts in the field. 
4

informed the development of DOD’s Guidance for Employment of the Force, which is the military’s primary operational planning guidance document and which made SSR, particularly 

defense reform, a major focus area for the security cooperation activities of its geographic 

combatant commanders. DOD also used the paper as the foundation for the SSR chapter 

in the Army’s Field Manual 3-07 and in draft Joint doctrine. The 2010 Quadrennial Defense 

Review section on security assistance reform applies the SSR lens to the military capabilities, processes, and organizations needed to build partner capacity.

The 3D paper helped put SSR more firmly on Washington’s policy agenda, but it was only 

a first step toward instating a common U.S. government-wide policy framework. Although 

representatives from other organizations made crucial contributions to the document and 

used it in practice, it was solely a State, USAID, and DOD statement and did not reflect 

a government-wide policy position. Furthermore, the paper was adopted in the last days 

of the Bush administration and has not been updated to reflect the priorities and views of 

the Obama administration. A logical follow-up to the paper would be a presidential policy 

directive (PPD) that would offer the definitive Obama administration statement on SSR and 

apply to all federal departments and agencies. 

In fact, a PPD on security sector assistance is currently being prepared. Security sector 

assistance is a term of art that has increasingly supplanted SSR in the U.S. government’s 

vocabulary. In the draft PPD, SSR is recognized as one objective of security sector assistance, 

which also includes a broader set of activities such as support to U.S. allies and coalition 

partners for combined military operations. Current initiatives centering on security sector 

assistance tend to focus on the supply side of U.S. assistance and on improving the way in 

which assistance is delivered. Improving assistance delivery is essential, but the intended 

ends of that assistance are just as vital as streamlined ways and means. Reform, which 

involves the transformation of individual attitudes and behaviors at the most basic level, is 

just as important as—if not more so than—capacity. Without an emphasis on reform, U.S. 

assistance risks helping partners build more effective security forces that are not bound by 

the rule of law, legitimate in the eyes of local populations, or sustainable in the long run. 

Interagency Assessment

Comprehensive needs assessments should provide the foundation for donor decisions on 

assistance priorities and programming in support of a partner’s SSR efforts. Assessments 

are essential for analyzing the capacity and capabilities of both state and non-state actors 

in the security sector. Analysis is more than a technical matter, however. To be comprehensive, assessments should include an analysis of the political context, including the political 

will of those in power and their incentives for change, the attitudes of security providers, 

potential spoilers, and possible entry points for donors. A thorough needs assessment can 

establish a baseline, which is critical for future programming, monitoring, and evaluation. 

Assessments of security sector strengths and weaknesses can also help partners better 

understand the need for reform and build internal constituencies for change. Unfortunately, 

assessment remains a major deficiency in the international SSR community of practice. As 

a consequence, donor programs and activities are sometimes developed without a thorough 

understanding of local conditions and priorities, and often end up being driven by donor 

supply rather than local need.

Nonetheless, U.S. government stakeholders have made some important contributions in 

this area by developing several tools to assess the assistance needs of a partner’s security 

sector. USAID has led the development of a draft Interagency Security Sector Assessment 

Framework (ISSAF) with the support of the interagency SSR working group. The ISSAF 

provides a strategic overview of the capacity, gaps, and linkages among the various compoAssessment remains a major 

deficiency in the international 

SSR community of practice. As 

a consequence, donor programs 

and activities . . . often end up 

being driven by donor supply 

rather than local need.
5

nents of the security sector and identifies entry points for programs in the different phases 

of a security sector’s development. By providing an integrating mechanism for assessments, 

the ISSAF promotes better interagency coordination and encourages joint assessment and 

analysis. It has been piloted in several countries, beginning with Liberia in 2006, and 

including Albania and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The ISSAF also complements the 

Interagency Conflict Assessment Framework (ICAF), which assesses the risk of conflict in 

fragile states. 

The ISSAF offers a framework for organizing subsector analysis as well. SSR stakeholders 

in the U.S. government have pioneered a number of tools that look at different components 

of the security sector in more detail. USAID and State PM have applied SSR concepts to maritime security through the development of a Maritime SSR assessment tool. State’s Bureau of 

International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement developed the Criminal Justice Sector 

Assessment Rating Tool (CJSART) to examine the assistance needs of a partner’s police, 

courts, and corrections components. This tool has been used extensively around the world 

and is currently on its second iteration. The CJSART served as the model for DOD’s development of a Defense Sector Assessment Rating Tool (DSART). The draft DSART was piloted in 

the Democratic Republic of Congo in early 2010 and should be finalized by the fall of 2010. 

Despite the extensive progress to date, each of the tools remains underdeveloped pending 

more extensive field testing and refinement. Furthermore, assessment tools are lacking for 

other elements of the security sector, especially the intelligence sector. 

Interagency Planning and Programming

Many donors have identified the need for improved multiyear planning and programming 

in their national capitals to produce more coherent SSR activities in the field. Ideally, joint 

needs assessments should provide planners and programmers with a solid understanding of 

a partner’s operational capabilities, institutional strengths and weaknesses, security sector governance, and political context to determine assistance needs. Informed by a comprehensive assessment, donor countries should help partners design long-term national 

strategies and SSR programs tailored to each unique context. Activities should then be 

prioritized and phased, resources aligned, and linkages made among security sector actors 

in an integrated plan of reform. Planning should support the experts in the field and on 

the country team, as well as be responsive to top-down priorities. Finally, planning should 

recognize that SSR is a long-term process, not a single event, and requires a planning 

perspective of years to decades. 

The U.S. government has had some noteworthy successes in developing plans to 

support a partner’s SSR agenda. Plan Colombia offers an example of integrated governmental support for a partner’s civil-military plan of security capacity building and reform. The 

counterterrorism arena provides other examples of joint plans, such as the regional TransSaharan Counterterrorism Initiative, which has helped limit the spread of al Qaeda influence 

in the region. However, interagency planning initiatives tend to be reactive to crises rather 

than preventive. Many feature ad hoc responses that are heavily dependent on personalities for success. Finally, planning processes generally feature a year-to-year rather than a 

long-term, multiyear perspective. The U.S. government lacks a comprehensive interagency 

planning framework across the entire national security spectrum—including a plan to support country-specific and regional security sector needs. 

Existing planning frameworks in civilian departments and agencies tend to focus on budgets rather than strategies. Mission strategic plans outline goals, priorities, and performance 

indicators for the country team, but these plans are often influenced more by budgetary 

considerations than by strategy. The State Department and USAID developed pilot Country 

Interagency planning initiatives 

tend to be reactive to crises 

rather than preventive. Many 

feature ad hoc responses that 

are heavily dependent on 

personalities for success. 
6

Assistance Strategies beginning in 2007 to provide a longer-term strategic planning framework for development assistance in those countries, but they lacked significant DOD input 

and were limited to twelve countries. Five-year Country Development Cooperation Strategies 

are currently in work for three pilot countries and could offer a framework for future SSR plans 

and strategies. However, no existing U.S. government framework promotes planning for SSR 

as a generational endeavor rather than as a one- to five-year program.

On the military side, theater campaign plans offer a long-range regional planning framework for DOD contingency planning and security cooperation activities, but no regional 

planning framework exists that integrates military and civilian efforts. Finally, U.S. government stakeholders have developed an Interagency Management System (IMS) for planning 

and organizing postconflict stabilization and reconstruction missions. Despite its potential 

utility for SSR activities following a conflict or crisis, the IMS has never been deployed, and 

its future remains uncertain. These gaps leave the U.S. government without a clear process 

for determining whole-of-government priorities and developing comprehensive plans for 

supporting country SSR strategies.

Interagency Evaluation 

Measuring the success and failure of SSR planning and programming is critical for making 

midcourse adjustments to plans and programs or evaluating whether assistance should be 

continued at all. Measurement is especially critical at a time of mounting resource constraints in donor countries. Unfortunately, the lack of systematic and meaningful evaluations of program impact and effectiveness may be the most glaring deficiency among SSR 

stakeholders. To the extent evaluation is performed, it tends to focus on outputs (e.g., 

amount of dollars spent, number of security forces trained) rather than outcomes. More work 

is needed on both quantitative measures of impact, including more accurate measures of 

readiness resulting from new training and equipment, and qualitative measures of effectiveness, such as improved public perceptions of safety and security and behavioral changes 

reflecting increased respect for human rights among security forces. Better impact evaluation will help donors and local actors determine which approaches work, which do not work, 

and what lessons can be gleaned for future programming. 

Within the U.S. government, advances in needs assessment tools and methodologies 

have not been matched by progress in developing tools for monitoring and evaluating the 

impact of security sector assistance, especially its impact on institutional change. The U.S. 

government has limited capacity and expertise to measure the effectiveness of its security 

sector interventions. In one notable illustration of this deficiency, a recent Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) audit highlighted significant flaws in the 

methodology used by U.S. and international forces to assess the effectiveness of Afghan 

National Security Force capacity-building programs.6 Advances in U.S. government evaluation capacity such as DOD’s new Office of Security Cooperation Assessments, which will be 

funded starting with the president’s fiscal year 2011 budget, are modest in scope and funding. No systematic evaluation of broader security sector assistance programs or SSR outcomes is currently conducted. However, the PPD on security sector assistance may represent 

a first step toward a remedy by including policy guidance on monitoring and evaluation. 

Flexible Funding Mechanisms

Adequate funding is an important but insufficient condition for effective SSR programs; 

the quality and the timeliness of the available funding mechanisms are just as important 

as the amount of funding. To improve funding access, a growing number of governments, 

including those of the UK and Canada, have established flexible, cross-departmental pro-
7

gramming and budgetary instruments for SSR, as well as broader stabilization and conflict 

prevention missions. Such instruments are works in progress, and some have been criticized 

as overly bureaucratic. Although these mechanisms sometimes do include additional steps 

that are not required in single-agency programs, the purpose of such tools is to foster wholeof-government approaches in pursuit of better SSR outcomes, not to reduce transaction 

costs. At their best, these innovations can ultimately reduce transaction costs by aligning 

or integrating what would otherwise have been separate initiatives working in parallel. On 

balance, such flexible funding mechanisms represent a potential improvement over past 

practice in the view of many stakeholders and participants. 

Challenges to the U.S. government in developing integrated SSR programs are compounded by the lack of such flexible instruments. As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has 

pointed out, “The United States’ interagency tool kit is still a hodgepodge of jury-rigged 

arrangements constrained by a dated and complex patchwork of authorities, persistent 

shortfalls in resources, and unwieldy processes.”7 Current mechanisms are not designed to 

facilitate interagency coordination and lack incentives for collaboration. Furthermore, funds 

appropriated or earmarked by Congress for programs in one sector, such as health, cannot 

easily be shifted to other areas, such as criminal justice, even when the partner needs U.S. 

assistance in developing community policing but has reached the limit of its capacity to 

absorb more HIV/AIDS programming. 

In response to the lack of sufficiently large and flexible security assistance funding, 

State and DOD sought through the congressional defense committees new authorities and 

funding that require joint formulation of capacity-building projects by both the secretary 

of state and the secretary of defense. The Section 1206 Global Train and Equip program 

provides flexible, responsive funding for urgent partner needs for training and equipment, 

but it is limited to counterterrorism missions and stability operations in which U.S. forces 

participate. The Section 1207 Security and Stabilization Assistance program allowed the 

secretary of defense to transfer up to $100 million in funds, services, or supplies to the secretary of state for urgent security, stabilization, and reconstruction missions. A majority of 

Section 1207 projects included security sector components. Section 1207 was unique in that 

it enhanced coordination by bringing key representatives of the State Department, DOD, and 

USAID together to examine gaps in current assistance and to jointly prioritize and select 

projects. However, Section 1207 expired on October 1, 2010, and DOD will have no legally 

mandated role in the Complex Contingency Fund, which is its designated successor.

To help address security assistance requirements more holistically and to provide a 

mechanism that creates incentives for interagency collaboration, Secretary of Defense Gates 

proposed a new assistance paradigm. Informed by the UK’s “Conflict Pool,” which allows 

the Department for International Development (DFID), Foreign and Commonwealth Office 

(FCO), and Ministry of Defence (MOD) to pool funding to implement holistic conflict prevention and stabilization programs, Secretary Gates proposed to Secretary of State Clinton the 

establishment of funding pools for security capacity, stabilization, and conflict prevention. 

An interagency working group has been formed to explore pooled funding in more depth, 

but to date, it remains unclear what shape the mechanism will take, or whether the proposal 

will be adopted by the Obama administration and enacted by Congress.

In the meantime, SSR programs must be cobbled together using the existing patchwork 

of stovepipe programs. While billions of dollars for training and equipment are available 

through current programs such as Foreign Military Financing, Peacekeeping Operations, and 

Section 1206, demand for these funds will always exceed availability—requiring stakeholders to be more strategic in their use. Additionally, funding for train-and-equip programs is 

not sufficiently balanced by investments in security sector governance and institutional 

capacity-building programs. 
8

Recognizing that short-term U.S. government investments in military training and equipment at the tactical level were not being matched by sufficient attention to partner security 

institutions and human capital, DOD created a new, global program to build defense institutions, the Defense Institution Reform Initiative (DIRI). DIRI and the Warsaw Initiative Fund 

(WIF) program for Partnership for Peace countries provide mechanisms to support defense 

reform efforts by partner countries. Through these programs, technical experts offer a 

policy and planning framework for assessing a partner’s defense sector needs, developing 

plans and strategies to build defense institutions, and evaluating outcomes. Investments in 

these institutional capacity-building programs are modest, however, and SSR programming 

remains skewed toward traditional training and equipping programs.8

Interagency Structures 

Donor governments face a number of competing policy priorities that make unity of effort 

a difficult goal to achieve. Tensions can arise among departments and ministries over shortterm versus long-term objectives; the proper balance of political, security, and developmental aims; and competing operational priorities such as counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, 

and transnational crime.9 Many donor governments have responded to these bureaucratic 

challenges by creating structures to institutionalize whole-of-government approaches to 

SSR, conflict prevention, and stabilization. Cross-departmental structures have been used 

to coordinate policy, facilitate joint planning and programming, manage pooled funding 

mechanisms, and support operations. Standing interagency structures can better support 

country teams and field missions and facilitate training and education, rapid response, and 

unity of effort. 

U.S. government stakeholders responded to the need for more interagency structure for 

SSR by forming an ad hoc working group in 2006. The group’s primary focus initially was 

to craft the joint statement on SSR. Drafting and editing of the paper began in mid-2007, 

and a lengthy clearance process lasted until January 2009. A major impetus to final clearance was the October 2008 formalization of the SSR working group under the Development 

Policy Coordinating Committee structure, which was chaired by the USAID administrator 

and National Security Council (NSC) staff. Besides producing the paper, the working group 

also helped prepare and facilitate the deployment of State Department–USAID–DOD teams 

to Liberia and Albania to conduct an integrated needs assessment of each partner’s security 

sector. 

In 2009, the new administration launched several major policy reviews. These included 

a review of security assistance policy, roles, missions, and authorities, which was proposed 

by Secretary of Defense Gates, along with a standing Interagency Policy Committee (IPC) 

to conduct the review. In response to Secretary Gates’s proposal, the National Security Staff 

launched the Security Sector Assistance IPC in August 2009. Although this IPC would seem 

to be the natural successor to the SSR working group or its logical sponsor, the IPC has 

focused more narrowly on the division of security assistance responsibilities and authorities 

between the State Department and DOD as it drafts the PPD on security sector assistance. 

Meanwhile, the SSR working group has been left without a clear mandate, and its work has 

largely come to a halt. Consequently, the U.S. government lacks an authoritative structure 

for making SSR policy. 

Donor governments have established hybrid structures to manage shared funding mechanisms as well as to make policy. To highlight the UK example again, DFID, FCO, and MOD 

have established a common governance structure for the Conflict Pool that facilitates joint 

decisions on funding recommendations and priorities from the senior level to the working 

level. The Conflict Pool requires personnel from each agency to work together—sometimes 

Donor governments face a 

number of competing policy 

priorities that make unity of 

effort a difficult goal 

to achieve.
9

on a single staff—to support the work of the pool. FCO and MOD assign individuals to form 

part of a DFID-led virtual secretariat to centrally oversee the pool. For each region, country, 

and functional theme, one department then takes the lead, with officials from the other 

two departments fulfilling supporting roles on relevant committees and secretariats. While 

interagency management of Section 1207 in the United States featured an interagency technical working group and selection committee to make decisions, its governance structure 

was not nearly as well developed as the UK’s Conflict Pool structure. Now that Section 1207 

has expired, the U.S. government lacks even that basic structure for interagency program 

management in the security sector assistance arena.

Additionally, donor governments have developed standing interagency units that 

operationalize policy for SSR as well as for stabilization and conflict prevention. The UK 

originally established separate tridepartmental operational structures for SSR and stabilization with the Security Sector Development Advisory Team (SSDAT) and the Post-Conflict 

Reconstruction Unit, which is now the Stabilisation Unit. Owing to a natural alignment of 

organizational missions as well as to budgetary pressures, in January 2010 SSDAT was folded 

into the Stabilisation Unit as its Security and Justice Group. The Stabilisation Unit, which 

includes both military and civilian secondees from MOD as well as civilians from DFID, FCO, 

and other government departments, now supports conflict prevention and SSR missions and 

leads postconflict stabilization efforts. Canada’s civilian Stabilization and Reconstruction 

Task Force, to take another country example, covers SSR programming and policy in addition 

to humanitarian policy, peacekeeping policy and capacity-building programs, and conflict 

prevention and peace-building policy and programs.

The Bush administration responded to lessons learned in Afghanistan and Iraq with 

a structure designed to coordinate the U.S. government’s response to stabilization and 

reconstruction missions spanning the policy level in Washington to the field. The Office 

of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) in the State Department 

was given a conflict prevention mandate as well. The coordinator is chartered with orchestrating the policy response to crises and contingencies across the government. However, 

S/CRS has struggled to gain traction within the State Department and among interagency 

stakeholders. The role of S/CRS in leading the policy response to crises has led to turf battles 

with State’s powerful regional bureaus, battles that might have been avoided with a more 

operationally focused mandate. S/CRS also lacks SSR capacity and the mandate to conduct 

the longer-term capacity building required by SSR. Finally, because it has only token DOD 

representation and focuses solely on civilian response, S/CRS helps perpetuate a civilianmilitary divide and is not a truly whole-of-government structure.10

Human Capital

Donor governments are recognizing the importance of human capital for SSR at every level 

from headquarters to the field. Effective governmental institutions require individuals with 

the requisite knowledge, skills, experience, and attitudes for SSR. Donors need sufficient 

professional cadres of SSR experts in the uniformed services as well as in their civil and 

foreign services. As SSR becomes more mainstreamed, greater professionalization will be 

required on the part of those who make donor policy and those who design programs. 

SSR work requires a mix of technical experts in such diverse areas as governance, 

community policing, and resource management, as well as generalists who are expert at 

integrating disparate activities coherently and skilled at navigating competing political 

and bureaucratic interests. Integrators of SSR strategies, programs, and activities also 

need grounding in concepts ranging from institution building to change management 

and strategic planning.11 All who work in the SSR arena, whether technical experts or 

The role of S/CRS in leading 

the policy response to crises 

has led to turf battles with 

State’s powerful regional 

bureaus, battles that might 

have been avoided with a more 

operationally focused mandate.
10

generalists, must also have an appreciation for the political dynamics and country context 

of the partner nation. 

Donor governments have taken a number of steps to professionalize the cadre of SSR 

experts through more concerted training and education programs. The OECD has developed 

an SSR training module, and the Association for SSR Education and Training was formed to 

foster a more coordinated approach to SSR training.12 Although appreciation for the SSR 

concept has grown in the U.S. government, specialized training for civilians and military 

members remains extremely limited. Training and education are particularly important at 

senior levels, where they are virtually nonexistent. USAID offers training to its own staff 

that is open to other U.S. government personnel, but formal offerings of SSR courses 

for regional and functional bureau experts at State, DOD, USAID, and other interagency 

stakeholders are notably lacking. Training and education in SSR tend to be ad hoc and selfdirected when they do take place. No standardized curriculum exists, nor have any certification standards been established for U.S. government personnel. 

Donor governments also need the capacity to reach beyond standing units and organizations to tap specialized expertise. Some have formed reserves of experts who can respond 

on short notice to contingencies. The U.S. government has established the Civilian Response 

Corps (CRC), which is managed by S/CRS. Like S/CRS, the CRC has a mandate that includes 

stabilization and conflict prevention. While the CRC includes ninety rule-of-law positions 

at State and DOJ, plus three demobilization, disarmament, and reintegration experts with 

USAID, it includes only three SSR experts with USAID to provide a more broadly focused 

integration role. DOD has created a deployable capacity through its Civilian Expeditionary 

Workforce (CEW). The CEW includes a nascent cadre of experts to help build the capacity 

of partner defense institutions through the Ministry of Defense Advisers (MODA) program. 

These advisers support SSR by facilitating the development of systems, procedures, 

and practices. The United States Institute of Peace has provided training in advising and 

mentoring skills for this program. However, MODA is relatively small, with only thirty-eight 

personnel who can be deployed, and the program is limited to Afghanistan. 

In a time of severe resource constraints, no donor can hope to place technical experts 

for every conceivable requirement on the government payroll. Many have developed rosters 

of outside experts or leveraged contracts, grants, or other mechanisms to tap the external 

capacity found in the nonprofit and for-profit sectors. Clear boundaries are needed between 

governmental and external support of SSR programming, however. External SSR actors are 

best leveraged for their technical expertise, with policy direction reserved for government 

officials. To ensure effective oversight, officials responsible for designing and managing 

contracts need the training necessary to provide policy direction and ensure that programs 

support the partner’s overall SSR strategy. In the U.S. government, however, the lack of 

capacity among civilian departments and agencies has resulted in an insufficient number 

of project overseers with these requisite skills as well as the background to craft contracts 

that reflect SSR best practices and priorities. 

Recommendations

The U.S. government has made major strides toward making SSR an institutional priority, 

but much more needs to be done to mainstream SSR at the headquarters level in Washington. Following are several concrete recommendations that, if implemented, would further 

elevate SSR within the U.S. government. 

•	 Make the Security Sector Assistance IPC a standing venue for advancing SSR policy.

The Security Sector Assistance IPC is the most authoritative policy coordinating body 

for issues related to SSR and should be made permanent for the duration of the Obama 

Formal offerings of SSR courses 

for regional and functional 

bureau experts . . . are 

notably lacking.
11

administration. Once its review of security sector–related authorities, roles, and missions 

is complete, the IPC should reemphasize the reform objective of security sector assistance 

and make SSR policy a clear priority. The IPC should create sub-IPCs for SSR training and 

education and institution and human capacity building in addition to its new strategic 

planning and assessments and metrics sub-IPCs. Finally, the IPC should ensure that all key 

stakeholders are at the table—including, in addition to State, DOD, and USAID, all other 

departments and agencies with important SSR roles, such as DOJ, DHS, and intelligence 

community organizations, should be included. 

•	 Emphasize reform in the PPD on security sector assistance. The Obama administration 

should promptly finish its review of security sector assistance policy and complete the 

PPD on security sector assistance. The directive should lay out the administration’s policy, 

principles, and priorities for SSR, as well as define the roles and missions of relevant organizations and methods for improving the delivery mechanisms for U.S. government provision 

of security sector assistance. The PPD should balance capacity building with reform and 

ensure that train-and-equip programs are better integrated with activities that promote 

improved security sector governance and develop the human capacity of partner nations. 

An authoritative administration policy statement that emphasizes the transformational 

objectives of SSR as well as the need for improved delivery of security sector assistance 

would be a major step toward institutionalizing SSR.

•	 Begin a systematic process of assessing partner SSR needs. The Security Sector Assistance IPC should formally charter its new strategic planning and assessments sub-IPC to 

advance the necessary analytical work on needs assessments. These groups should facilitate 

continued refinement of those interagency needs assessment tools already in progress 

and sponsor the development of new tools in areas where gaps remain, especially in the 

intelligence area. Assessment tools developed by the U.S. government should be made 

available to the global SSR community of practice in order to promote common assessment 

methodologies and approaches and for the larger community to continually refine. The 

strategic planning and assessments sub-IPC should leverage assessment tools and methodologies to facilitate needs assessments before beginning any major program of security 

sector assistance. Assessments should include a frank analysis of a partner’s political will 

to transform its security sector to assess the likelihood that U.S. assistance will have its 

intended impact. 

•	 Implement joint SSR planning and programming. The strategic planning and assessments sub-IPC should be chartered to develop a framework, process, and procedures to 

jointly plan and program SSR activities. Where possible, stakeholders should leverage 

existing or forecasted planning frameworks, such as the Country Development Cooperation 

Strategies, mission strategic plans, and theater campaign plans, as platforms for coherent, 

coordinated, and multiyear SSR plans and strategies. To standardize multiyear planning 

and programming for security sector assistance, an interagency Security Sector Assistance 

Plans and Programs Office should be established. The State Department should host the 

office and serve as its secretariat to reflect the political nature of SSR and foreign assistance, and DOD and USAID—as well as DOJ, DHS, and other organizations—should provide 

secondees.

•	 Evaluate the impact and effectiveness of security sector assistance. Although the U.S. 

government has yet to develop its own tool kit for measuring the impact and effectiveness of its SSR interventions, other organizations have developed evaluation frameworks. 

Building on work done by Saferworld in this area, the metrics sub-IPC should sponsor pilot 

evaluations to measure progress toward achieving SSR objectives and should facilitate the 

further development of evaluation tools to assess the impact of U.S. assistance.13 It should 
12

also sponsor the development of new interagency metrics and evaluation frameworks where 

gaps remain among the international SSR community of practice.

•	 Create a pilot Security Partnership Pool for funding SSR activities. The Obama administration should seek congressional authorization for a pilot funding pool informed by 

Secretary Gates’s proposal. The Security Partnership Pool would pool resources from State, 

DOD, and USAID in a way that would align train-and-equip programs with institution 

building and human capital development, and it would balance assistance appropriately 

among the elements of the security sector. The pool would also feature long-term funding 

arrangements to promote long-term partnerships with governments and avoid short-term 

shifts in programming. Governance of the pool would be shared to give each organization 

a voice in setting priorities, allocating funding, and directing programming. The Security 

Sector Assistance Plans and Programs Office would serve as the secretariat of the pool. The 

Security Partnership Pool would complement legacy security assistance tools and programs 

that will remain in place for the foreseeable future. 

•	 Emphasize institutional capacity, security sector governance, and human capacity 

development for partners. Additional emphasis is needed on security sector governance 

and institution-building investments, programs, and activities such as DOD’s DIRI program. 

Train-and-equip projects should be integrated with institution building to help the partner 

govern, oversee, and sustain its enhanced capabilities over time. Corresponding investments in the knowledge, skills, and abilities of partner civil servants and security officials 

are needed to provide them the technical skills they need to deliver security and justice 

effectively and run ministries efficiently. At the same time, greater investments are needed 

to foster the attitudinal and behavioral changes among individual officials and decision 

makers that are necessary for lasting reform. Building on the legacy SSR working group, 

a sub-IPC on institutional and human capacity should be formed to develop doctrine and 

best practices for building capable institutions, fostering effective governance, and developing the human capacity of partner security sectors and officials.

•	 Develop deployable interagency SSR capacity within an operational unit. SSR should 

be a core, cross-cutting mission for both stabilization and conflict prevention. This requires 

a deployable, reserve SSR capacity, which should be a key component of the CRC and a 

revamped, more operational S/CRS—one modeled along the lines of the UK’s Stabilisation 

Unit. To make this organization truly whole-of-government, it should be broadened to 

include secondees from DOD—both active and reserve military members as well as civilians from the CEW. To reduce vertical span-of-control problems and avoid turf battles, the 

organization should be more operationally oriented, and country and regional policy should 

be left to the NSC and the regional bureaus at State. This organization should also be given 

the mandate to augment partners and U.S. country teams with technical expertise to conduct needs assessments and evaluate impact and effectiveness of programs. Because SSR 

requirements are not limited to conflict-affected or at-risk countries, this capacity should 

be made broadly available to U.S. partners as well as multilateral organizations.

•	 Develop human capital for SSR within the U.S. government, and develop better systems and procedures for leveraging external expertise. The Security Sector Assistance 

IPC should establish a training and education sub-IPC with the mandate of developing the 

human capital of U.S. civilian and military officials at each level—including senior decision 

makers—who are involved in making policy or designing programs related to a partner’s 

security sector. The sub-IPC should also sponsor development of a specialized cadre of SSR 

experts who are skilled at designing and integrating programs across interagency boundaries. Some of these experts should be mainstreamed across key regional and functional 

bureaus, while others should be assigned to SSR-focused organizations such as a joint 
13

planning and programming or pooled funding management cells. The deployable cadre of 

SSR and DDR experts within the CRC should also be expanded. Overseers of SSR contracts 

and grant-making vehicles should receive the training and education needed to better 

craft and oversee contracts. Finally, contracts, grants, and other mechanisms should be 

emplaced to quickly tap the technical expertise in the nonprofit and for-profit sectors.

Conclusion

The recommendations made in this report are not exhaustive. Steps should be taken to 

integrate a more effective U.S. framework for SSR into an international architecture that 

includes other donor governments, international and regional organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and, most important, partner governments and populations. At the 

same time as it organizes itself internally for SSR, the U.S. government should seek ways 

to improve its coordination with other donors at the policy level through UN and OECD 

forums and through initiatives such as the International Network for Conflict and Fragility. 

Ultimately, needs assessment, planning, programming, and evaluation should be better 

coordinated among multiple donors and with the host country. 

Other donor governments and international organizations are grappling with challenges 

similar to those facing the United States. While not all recommendations in this report have 

applicability beyond Washington, D.C., the framework proposed is adaptable to other donor 

governments and multilateral organizations. The U.S. government should support efforts 

to institutionalize SSR capacities among other donors and through multilateral initiatives 

such as the new SSR Unit in the UN’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations. Finally, the 

U.S. government should increase its support for institutionalizing South-South SSR capacity through regional organizations such as the African Union and mechanisms such as the 

African Security Sector Network.

The primary audience for this report is the U.S. government’s SSR community of practice, 

and it is intended to offer participants a working plan for the coming months and years. 

Whether or not any specific recommendations in the report are adopted, it is hoped that 

SSR stakeholders will agree on the ultimate vision they suggest. At this future destination, 

structures would be in place to make policy, assess needs, allocate funding, develop plans 

and strategies, design programs, deploy technical experts, and evaluate results for effective, 

long-term SSR programs. Planning would be conducted by SSR professionals armed with the 

training and education, as well as the analytical assessment, planning and programming, 

and evaluation tools needed to manage integrated SSR programs. Programmers would enjoy 

sufficient funding for institutional development as well as flexible funding instruments that 

create incentives for, not roadblocks to, interagency coordination. They would be led by 

policymakers grounded in SSR theory and practice. 

The security of the United States depends in part on how well it helps other states meet 

their basic security needs and how effectively those states provide their populations with 

safety, security, and justice. Getting SSR right is difficult but essential. Institutionalizing 

SSR in Washington will enable more effective support for U.S. country teams and more effective implementation of programs and activities in the field, which in turn will make the U.S. 

government a more effective partner and secure a better return on its investments in the 

security of states and populations around the world. 
14

Notes

1. For a detailed background on the emergence and evolution of the SSR concept, see Nicole Ball and Dylan 

Hendrickson, “Trends in Security Sector Reform (SSR) Policy, Practice and Research,” CSDG Papers, no. 20, 

March 2009, http://www.securityanddevelopment.org/pdf/CSDG Paper 20.pdf. See also Organisation for 

Economic Cooperation and Development, Development Assistance Committee, Security System Reform and 

Governance: Policy and Good Practice (Paris: OECD, 2004), http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/8/39/31785288.

pdf, and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Development Assistance Committee, 

Handbook on Security System Reform: Supporting Security and Justice (Paris: OECD, 2007), http://www.oecd.org/

dataoecd/43/25/38406485.pdf.

2. One example of SSR in the U.S. context is the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, which responded to debilitating 

interservice rivalries by reforming the military command structure and empowering the chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff. In another example, major intelligence failures prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks led to the reform 

of the U.S. intelligence sector under the director of national intelligence. Likewise, U.S. border control, the Coast 

Guard, Customs, and other critical security functions were consolidated in the new Department of Homeland 

Security.

3. This framework was inspired by a paper prepared for the Thematic Meeting on Whole-of-Government Approaches 

to Security System Reform hosted by the government of the Netherlands in 2008. See Conflict Research Unit, 

Netherlands Institute of International Relations, or “Clingendael Institute,” “Towards a Whole-of-Government 

Approach to Security System Reform,” conference background paper, The Hague, April 9–10, 2008. The framework 

was also informed by discussions at the United States Institute of Peace Initiative for Security Sector Governance 

conference entitled “International Policy on Security Sector Governance: Opportunities and Gaps,” held 

June 29–30, 2010, and by the experience of the author.

4. The Office of Partnership Strategy was reorganized as the Office of Partnership Strategy and Stability Operations 

in March 2009.

5. U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of Defense, and U.S. Agency for International Development, “Security 

Sector Reform,” January 2009, http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/democracy_and_governance/publications/pdfs/

SSR_JS_Mar2009.pdf, 3.

6. Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, “Actions Needed to Improve the Reliability 

of Afghan Security Force Assessments,” June 29, 2010, SIGAR Audit-10-11 Security/ANSF Capability Ratings, 

http://www.sigar.mil/pdf/audits/SIGAR%20Audit-10-11.pdf.

7. Robert Gates, “Helping Others Defend Themselves,” Foreign Affairs 89, no. 3 (May/June 2010): 4.

8. For example, dedicated institution-building programs in DOD total only about $12 million ($6 million for DIRI 

and $6 million in WIF defense institution-building funding) in FY 2010, while the Section 1206 Global Train and 

Equip program is funded at a level of $350 million. 

9. Conflict Research Unit, Netherlands Institute of International Relations, “Towards a Whole-of-Government 

Approach to Security System Reform,” 5.

10. S/CRS includes staff from civilian agencies throughout the U.S. government and highlights USAID, DOJ, and 

DHS, as well as the Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce, and Department of Health and Human 

Services, among its “whole-of-government” partners. However, DOD representation has typically consisted of a 

single army colonel serving as military adviser to the coordinator. 

11. OECD, Handbook on Security System Reform, 4.

12. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Security System Reform: What Have We Learned? (Paris: 

OECD, 2010), http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/63/44/44391867.pdf, 12.

13. Simon Rynn with Duncan Hiscock, “Evaluating for Security and Justice: Challenges and Opportunities for 

Improved Monitoring and Evaluation of Security System Reform Programmes,” Saferworld Research Report, 

October 2009, http://www.saferworld.org.uk/downloads/pubdocs/Evaluating%20for%20security%20and%20

justice.pdf. 

Of Related Interest

•	 The Link Between DDR and SSR in Conflict-Affected Countries by Sean McFate (Special Report, 

May 2010)

•	 Local Ownership of Security Sector Reform by Liz Panarelli (Peace Brief, February 2010)

•	 Congress and Parliaments in Security Sector Reform by Robert M. Perito (Peace Brief, 

January 2010)

•	 In Pursuit of Democracy and Security in the Greater Middle East by Daniel Brumberg (Working 

Paper, January 2010)

•	 The Interior Ministry's Role in Security Sector Reform by Robert M. Perito (Special Report, 

May 2009)

•	 Consolidating Disarmament: Lessons from Colombia‘s Reintegration Program for Demobilized 

Paramilitaries by Jonathan Morgenstein (Special Report, November 2008)

United States 

Institute of Peace

1200 17th Street NW

Washington, DC 20036

www.usip.org

An online edition of this and related 

reports can be found on our Web site 

(www.usip.org), together with additional 

information on the subject.