Operational Security Management in Violent Environments - Good Practice Review 8

This is the outcome of a training-oriented research and research-oriented training project, in collaboration with a wide range of individuals from the main types of humanitarian organisations (UN, Red Cross movement, NGOs, think-tanks). It offers a systematic step-by-step approach to security management starting from context analysis and threat and risk assessment, to security strategy choice and security planning. It reviews major types of threats (battlefield survival, vehicle safety, site security, sexual assault, abduction and kidnapping, etc), measures to try and prevent them, and guidelines on how to survive and manage an incident if it occurs. It also stresses the importance of incident analysis and better exchange of security information between agencies. Finally, a number of crosscutting themes are explored that are relevant to risk control such as personal and team competency, clarity towards national staff, good communications, briefing and training, etc.

A revised, more comprehensive version of this publication was released in 2010.