From the perspective of a poor woman in the Congo, life is full of threats to security beginning with violence within the family and extending to the risk of catastrophic illness, loss of livelihood, natural disaster, human rights abuse by military forces, HIV and AIDS and the destruction caused by war.

She does not necessarily distinguish between these notions, yet they are crucial to her security.

The Human Security concept, developed originally by the UN, puts poor people at the centre of perceptions and analysis and focuses on all the issues that they cite as important.

It is their security, rather than national or global security, that is the subject of attention, and their security is expressed as an aspect of their state of mind.

It is a concept that recognises that poor people are vulnerable to a constant series of threats and risks focusing on a need to retain a minimum quality of life, that was defined as:

• Freedom from Fear
• Freedom from Want
• Freedom to take action on one’s own behalf.