6. Community Dimension of Human Security in Urban Context

Human security is an emerging concept that has gained interest in the last 15 years. Human security is concerned with reducing and, when possible, removing the insecurities that plague human lives. The human development approach, pioneered by visionary economist Mahbub ul Haq (under the broad umbrella of the United Nations Development Programme), has done much to enrich and broaden development literature. Human development is concerned with the removal of various hindrances that restrain and restrict human lives and prevent people from thriving. Human security is a concept that supplements the expansionist perspective of human development by focusing on what are sometimes called the “downside risks”. Human security, like human development, highlights the social dimension of sustainable development’s three pillars: environment, economy, and society. Although there are recent investigations on the broader perspective of human security from a “security” perspective, there are very few investigations on the community dimension of human security. This chapter summarizes some of the emerging issues at the community level, focusing on the urban context, and provides examples of tools and approaches of community involvement at the city level. Citing examples from an Asian context, the chapter focuses on innovation in community approaches to enhance support for disaster risk reduction and environmental improvements, thereby contributing to human security.