The evolution of threats, especially during the last decade, has considerably altered our understanding of insecurities. Since the end of the Cold War, we have witnessed the lives of millions of people being threatened not only by international war and conflict but also by civil violence, organised crime, transnational terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, chronic poverty, environmental degradation, and deadly infectious diseases.

At the same time, the opportunities for removing insecurities across the world are also larger now than ever before. The unprecedented combination of resources and technology means that we have the tools, the knowledge and the resources to make measurable progress towards the achievement of human security.

While the idea of human security can be traced to reports of global commissions in the 1970s and 1980s – the Brandt Commission, the Brundtland Commission and the Commission on Global Governance – it was not until the 1994 Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) that human security was first introduced as a distinctive new concept. Since then the concept has been further refined by subsequent reports including the report of the Commission on Human Security entitled Human Security Now.

Today, human security is increasingly included in the agendas and the policy debates of intergovernmental and regional organisations such as the G7/G8, the African Union, the Association of South East Asian Nations, and the European Union. At the same time, a growing number of governments, non-governmental and civil society groups have also incorporated human security into their programme and policy priorities. Meanwhile, within the UN, the recent report of the UN High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, A more secure world: Our shared responsibility and the report of the UN Secretary-General, In larger freedom: towards development, security and human rights for all, continue to acknowledge the fundamental importance of human security to the promotion of peace and security.