Human security is a concept introduced in the 1994 report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Human security was seen no longer as involving matters of military threat and protection of strategic foreign policy objectives but as focused on the lives of human beings. The aim is to protect each individual and enable them to fully exercise their vital freedoms.

In 1999, the United Nations created its Trust Fund for Human Security (UNTFHS). At the same time the Human Security Network was set up.

An independent Commission on Human Security was set up in 2001 in response to an appeal from Kofi Annan at the Millennium Summit “to free the individual from want and fear”. Its report, delivered in 2003, stresses the need to put the individual at the centre of decision-making processes and to use this viewpoint to address current challenges, such as post-conflict rehabilitation, poverty reduction, health, education, migration and conflict.

Update : July 2010