For the third time, the German Federal Foreign Office and the IFSH’s Research and Knowledge Transfer Office Security Sector Reform (SSR Hub) hosted a round table on security sector reform. On 26 February, governmental officials, representatives from the German Parliament and (international) organisations, policy experts and researchers came together at the Federal Foreign Office.
Under the title “Moving from Reform to Transformation? Feminist Foreign Policy and Security Sector Reform”, the participants discussed the central question of what the Federal Foreign Office’s guidelines for Feminist Foreign Policy, published in March 2023, mean for Germany’s commitment to security sector reform. The aim of the event was also to give the invited experts as much space as possible for inputs that would help the Federal Foreign Office to align the German SSR engagement more closely with feminist perspectives. It became clear that further changes at home are needed as well.
The event took place in the context of the German Interministerial Strategy to Support Security Sector Reform (SSR), published in 2019, in which the German government “strives for stronger links with national and international SSR actors, and correspondingly seeks to enhance its consultation mechanisms.”
Feminist Foreign Policy and Security Sector Reform
Jessica Noll and Philipp Neubauer from the SSR Hub project organised a round table in Berlin together with the Federal Foreign Office. The central topic was feminist foreign policy in the area of security sector reform. (c) private