In his summation of the symposium, Professor Sen noted that participants had been able to consider human security from a variety of interrelated perspectives. The first task is to focus the attention of the world on this challenge and to use the United Nations Millennium Summit as a forum for responding to the need for human security. The report of the United Nations Secretary General to the Millennium Summit will have close relevance to the human security issues discussed at the symposium. We should begin by supporting this report, he said. Discussion at this symposium suggests that the human security perspective offers an effective approach to conflict and development.
Human security is an action-oriented approach that focuses on the individual.
It is also an approach that seeks to protect people from danger during the inevitable downturns inherent in market economies. It complements and reinforces the two perspectives of human development and human rights, which the United Nations is already using as its approaches to global issues. What is needed now is the will to explore these issues further and promote human security.