On Secretary General Annan's vision of "freedom from fear"

In its section on "Freedom from Fear," Secretary General Kofi Annan's report In Larger Freedom presents a comprehensive approach to ensuring global security. Prevention of deadly conflict, it notes, "must be central to all of our efforts, from combating poverty and promoting sustainable development; through strengthening national capacities to manage conflict, promoting democracy and the rule of law, and curbing the flow of small arms and light weapons; to directing preventive operational activities, such as the use of good offices, Security Council missions and preventive deployments."

One cannot but fully agree, and it is certainly a step forward that there is a growing consensus among us that development, peace-building, and conflict prevention must be undertaken simultaneously if initiatives at peace and security are to take hold and prosper.

This is, however, a consensus mainly among United Nations agencies, peace analysts and practitioners, and civil society actors. Moreover, the positive experiences in this area have been mainly at the local, micro level.