Are You Safer Now? Yes and No

The Human Security Centre concerns itself with personal security: "Human security is a relatively new concept, but one that is now widely used to describe the complex of interrelated threats associated with civil war, genocide and the displacement of populations. . . . human security is about protecting individuals and communities from any form of political violence. "

The Centre's Human Security Brief 2006 reports the following:

The new data indicate that the post-Cold War decline in armed conflicts and related fatalities reported last year has continued, with Sub-Saharan Africa seeing the greatest decrease in political violence.

Other encouraging trends include continuing declines in the number of genocides and other mass slaughters of civilians, and a drop in refugee numbers and military coups.

But some of the other findings are far from positive. Four of the world's six regions have experienced increased numbers of conflicts since 2002, the last five years have seen a huge spike in the estimated death toll from terrorism, while negotiated settlements, which are responsible for an increasing proportion of conflict terminations, have worryingly high failure rates.