MSC 2022 Recap: Human Security

Between 18–20 February, world leaders and decision-makers gathered for the 58th Munich Security Conference (MSC) at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof. Even before MSC’s outgoing Chairman, Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger, gave his opening remarks, one thing was certain: all eyes were set on the elephant that was not in the room – Russia. Yet, the MSC 2022 was more than the Russia crisis and more than geopolitics.  

In his much anticipated speech on Saturday morning, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz laid out his four fundamental ideas for “a re-positioning of Europe and the transatlantic alliance in a changed world.” Acknowledging MSC’s role as a “pioneer” in establishing a broad security definition, the German Chancellor pointed to the need to “broaden our understanding of security” beyond a narrow definition of hard security. Heeding this call, the MSC in 2022 also looked beyond the short-term risk of a Russian invasion and its repercussions for European security. It placed human security front and center by covering a wide range of security dimensions and their respective challenges in the main program and side events. MSC Policy Advisors sum up core takeaways in five thematic fields and provide four overarching narratives from a human security angle from the 58th Munich Security Conference.  

At this year's conference, decision-makers and experts discussed the manifold consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic and scrutinized the international community's approach to put an end to the pandemic’s acute phase.  

Three narratives dominated the discussions. First, health should not be dealt with solely in the areas of health and development policy, but as a cross-cutting issue with considerable security and foreign policy implications. The debates highlighted the diverse impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, including the reversal of developmental progress and the intensification of violent conflicts, fragility, and inequality. Countries have been affected differently, and as Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation explained during a discussion on finding a way out of the pandemic, "the greatest damage to most low-income countries was the economic damage." Secondly, preparing for and reacting to pandemics requires a truly collective and inclusive response. Proposals and concrete initiatives that have been discussed included more and sustainable financing, improving surveillance systems, and supporting low- and middle-income countries in building manufacturing capacities for vaccines. And thirdly, while all of those initiatives were deemed necessary to end the acute phase of the Covid-19 pandemic, they also pathed the way for future pandemic preparedness and response.  

Summarily, the discussions at the MSC 2022 highlighted the need for cross-cutting, collective, and inclusive collaboration, the challenge to implement initiatives and act upon solidarity statements, and to connect short-term with long-term health security. Whereas decision-makers are currently still focused on overcoming the current Covid-19 pandemic, they also need to keep in mind the prediction of global health experts, such as Sir Jeremy Farrar who stressed during an MSC Townhall on the Polypandemic: "this will not be the last pandemic. This will not be the last disruption at the global level that comes out of the health agenda and the health agenda is now every agenda." 

"285 million people are marching towards starvation" and "810 million people are facing chronic hunger" says David Beasley, Director of the UN World Food Program, thereby confronting participants of the MSC Townhall on food security with a sobering reality. Discussions in Munich made clear: both short-term emergency response in the form of donations and aid provided to those in need, as well as long-term strategies to address the root causes of hunger are indispensable. Several factors were identified as core drivers of food insecurity around the world, chief among them climate change and the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, which both have further exacerbated the vulnerability of many.  

In order to address this rampant food insecurity, three pathways were particularly highlighted during the talks in Munich. Firstly, agricultural transformation is seen as crucial. It must be driven by both technological advances as well as the use of already available methods of food production – all against the backdrop of water scarcity and extreme weather events. Secondly, food security needs to play a bigger role in the discussions around mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change, as there is a direct connection. If left unaccounted for, dire consequences must be expected (for more on the interconnection of food security and climate change, see MSC's Sustainability Program). Thirdly, the cycle between famine, destabilization, mass migration, and fragile governance must be acknowledged. These phenomena need to be addressed as mutually reinforcing trends. Food should be seen and used as a tool for peace, rather than a weapon of war. 

"What we’ve had in the last 20 years is the securitizing of humanity [...]. We need to flip it and we need to humanize security," as put by Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini, founder of the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN), during an MSC Townhall on women’s agency in conflict and humanitarian crises. The discussion showed that even though it is by now common knowledge that women are disproportionately affected by conflicts and that gender equality serves as a telling predictor for peace in a society, conversations on the matter are too often still siloed.  

Discussions in the Townhall format highlighted that in order to find holistic solutions to the multifaceted security challenges around the world, it is crucial to include women and other marginalized groups on all levels of decision-making. Essentially, there is a need to see past mere representation. Tawakkol Karman, Chairwoman of the Women Journalists Without Chains and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, pointed to the importance of ensuring that women are not used as "decoration of tyrannies." Raychelle Omamo, Kenyan Cabinet Secretary for Foreign Affairs highlighted: "Our obligation is to empower women where they are, to ensure that women’s agency is felt in the lives of ordinary people." A feminist foreign, defence, and development policy, as advocated in the Townhall by Svenja Schulze, German Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, could pave the way for an increased application of a gender-lens when analyzing and addressing current and future security challenges. 

"At the moment, the most likely consequence of civil war is another civil war. And issues of transitional justice speak directly to the syndrome that exists at the moment." With those words, David Miliband, President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), introduced the Townhall on transitional justice at the MSC 2022, highlighting importance of breaking the recurring cycle of civil wars.  

Dealing with the main challenges for and achievements of transitional justice processes and implementing accountability in societies emerging from violent conflicts and authoritarian regimes, the discussions mainly drew on the experiences of Rwanda, Kosovo, Syria, and South Africa. The speakers agreed on the importance of an all-of-society approach to ensure sustainable transition, including the early involvement and active participation of women in transitional justice processes, as they endured a higher risk of being targeted due to their gender or sexual identity. Participants agreed that people should be put at the center of transitional justice processes. The international community also maintains an important role in signaling accountability; the recent court trials in Koblenz on the involvement of a Syrian regime official in crimes against humanity sent a strong signal on the international community's commitment in supporting justice processes. 

Adding to the remarks of the newly appointed MSC Chairman, Ambassador Christoph Heusgen, that there will not be any reconciliation, if crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes "that have been committed are forgotten about," Ottilia Anna Maunganidze emphasized the fact that many societies are in constant transition: "For some, transition does not end because we say it is over, because we are told that we reconciled. But in fact, the more you are told that you have reconciled and the more you see that it has not worked for you, the greater the frustration." 

In the face of crises like Russia amassing troops at Europe's doorstep on the eve of the MSC, the gravity of humanitarian crises in places like Mali, Yemen, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, or Afghanistan is often lost. Despite the omnipresence of the Russia crisis, a broad range of regional challenges to human security was discussed on the main stage, in roundtables, and townhalls at the MSC 2022.  

Three observations stick out from multiple discussion formats: First, there is an intensive process of reckoning with strategic mistakes made in contexts like Afghanistan, the Sahel, or the Horn of Africa. Windows of opportunity have been missed and stabilization efforts were often ill-suited for the challenges at hand. Ultimately, the costs of protracted conflicts are borne by civilian populations, creating ideal conditions for radicalization and further fragility. Secondly, despite a cascade of global crises that are happening in parallel, human security is no challenge that can be addressed in a distant future. It requires immediate action. As International Rescue Committee President David Miliband put it in a Townhall on Afghanistan regarding the country's dire humanitarian emergency: "There is a starvation crisis going on at the moment. […] We don’t have time for an academic discussion […]."  Third, the West has a credibility problem. Compromising on its values hampers the West’s ability to foster stabilization, development, and democracy elsewhere in the world. Referring to the Sahel region at a panel discussion on the region, Italian Member of Parliament Lia Quartapelle stated: "We preach about democracy, but in the end, we accept systems that are non-democratic. And then, for certain states, for certain elites, it is better to turn to the original, which is the developmentalist model of China."  

As MSC Vice-Chairman Boris Ruge highlighted in the Townhall on Afghanistan, we should not neglect the analysis of our past mistakes, but there is one even more pressing question with regard to conflicts that drive human insecurity: "Where do we go from here?" If the international community does not find an answer without delay with tailored solutions for the complex crises in places like the Sahel, Afghanistan, or the Red Sea, fragility risks to become the "new normal."  

Human Security may be a complex concept. Yet, its lacking provision is immediately felt in terms of deficient access to food, health services, and education, as well as individual and collective rights. A human security perspective places the individual at the center of global security policy. From this point of view, many lessons can be drawn from the discussions at the 2022 Munich Security Conference.    

Four cross-cutting takeaways for human security from the 2022 MSC:  

1. Security must be people-centered. There is a shared understanding that a human security perspective needs to be mainstreamed in all matters of peace and security. International stabilization efforts are best equipped to meet their goals if they are people-centred and not excessively focused on governments. 
2. We often have the tools. Yet, we do not put them to good use and allow the problems to get out of hand. As Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini said in a Townhall on women’s agency in conflict: "If you have the tools and then you have the problem and you are not applying the tools to the problem, the problems festers and get worse."  
3. Timing matters. Be it hunger, a pandemic, or a political transition – the right sequencing of the concrete countermeasures is key. It requires substantial discussions and heightened awareness. Focusing solely on short-term emergency response, the mid-term policy, or a long-term strategy in either of the human security challenges outlined above, comes with grave peril.  
4. Partnership status: It’s difficult. In places like the Sahel, Afghanistan, or the Horn of Africa, development progress and humanitarian relief must often be secured by engaging with difficult partners, who are themselves party to a conflict. The same holds true in areas like health and food security, where decisive advances cannot be made without engaging with non-democratic regimes. 

Isabell Kump is a Policy Advisor with the Munich Security Conference (MSC). Before joining the MSC, she was Research Assistant in the Global Issues Division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin and Program Officer at SWP Brussels. She studied Sociology and Political Science in Erlangen-Nuremberg, Münster, and Östersund. During her studies, she gained work experience in, amongst others, various institutes for social research and policy consulting, and the SWP Brussels office. In addition to her work at MSC, she recently published an article on the framing of health in the United Nations Security Council. 

Luca Miehe is a Researcher & Policy Advisor with the Munich Security Conference (MSC). Before joining the MSC, he was Research Assistant in the Middle East and Africa Division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin. He studied Political Science in Berlin and Cairo. During his studies, he gained work experience in, amongst others, the German Bundestag, the Federal Foreign Office, and the International Organization for Migration. Added to recent MSC releases on the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea region, his latest publications cover Algeria, Egypt, and the conflict in the Nile basin. 

Amadée Mudie-Mantz is a Policy Advisor and Special Assistant to the Chairman with the Munich Security Conference (MSC). She has worked in a variety of positions in the MSC Chairman’s Office and completed her studies in International Relations in Berlin and Maastricht. During her studies, she focused on conflict resolution and gained work experience, amongst others, in the Federal Foreign Office and at Amnesty International. In addition to her work at MSC, she recently published on the role of women in the Colombian peace process.