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UNDP Asia-Pacific Director Kanni Wignaraja on the Necessity of Redefining Security

“If governments are serious about security in the fullest sense, investment in development is non-negotiable.”

In an age of intersectional crises, of threats that bleed across borders and between sectors, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) believes what’s needed is a redefinition of security. In a new report, the UNDP argues that development ought to have a larger role in addressing insecurity – not as it is traditionally understood, but as it actually affects people across Asia and the Pacific. 

It’s not about making a binary choice between defense and development, Kanni Wignaraja, UNDP regional director for Asia and the Pacific, told The Diplomat’s Managing Editor Catherine Putz. Instead, what’s critical is getting the balance right, investing in development and prevention, and leveraging development to enhance security. 

In pursuit of this, the UNDP proposes in its report a framework of “development circuit breakers” addressing economic insecurity, weak institutions, digital disruption and climate-health pressures that interact and reinforce each other. 

“Trust is the one switch that allows all four circuit breakers to work. Each switch depends on trust: between people and institutions, and among the institutions responsible for different parts of the system,” Wignaraja said.

In the following interview, Wignaraja expands on the structural vulnerabilities that define the modern security landscape, puts defense spending trends in context, and urges regional governments to shift their mindset from managing individual crises to managing shared risks.

Kanni Wignaraja, UNDP regional director for Asia and the Pacific.

What structural vulnerabilities define the modern security landscape across Asia and the Pacific? How is the current reality different from previous periods, what’s changed?

A lot has changed in the way we see and feel vulnerability and insecurity today across the region and the world.

Previously, maybe there were more episodic periods of intense pain, wars, for example, but more contained. Now I feel it’s almost like having chronic pain. It’s all of the time and in so many more places. And that is a very different scenario of insecurity and feeling unsafe.

Countries face overlapping shocks, often before they have recovered from the last. The old crisis-recovery-rebuilding cycle is breaking down, putting hard-won development gains repeatedly at risk.

The nature of the threats has changed too: many are not contained within borders. Climate shocks, pandemics, cybercrime, disinformation, supply-chain disruptions and water insecurity move across countries and systems. The scale is enormous. Online criminal economies are estimated at $1.03 trillion annually, with $114.1 billion in losses to cybercrime victims in 2025.

There is also an exponential factor, as these risks now travel faster, connect more quickly and spread like wildfires. Economic insecurity can erode trust; climate shocks destroy livelihoods and strain public finances; weak institutions create space for illicit economies. Sri Lanka illustrates the connections, amid its economic crisis, poverty rose from 11 percent in 2019 to more than 25 percent in 2023, alongside wider social and political unrest. Myanmar shows what can happen when several pressures converge and collide. Conflict, economic decline, poverty, weak governance and criminal economies increasingly reinforce one another. These cannot be neatly separated into security problems on the one hand and development problems on the other.

Our response systems were built for episodic emergencies. They now have to manage chronic, connected insecurity. 

Defense spending is soaring across the world, including in Asia, while development budgets have been trimmed down, in some cases dramatically. Do these trends reflect – or do they ignore – the actual threats communities across Asia and the Pacific face?

Today recorded military budgets are close to US$3 trillion. At the same time official development assistance (ODA) has fallen to $175 billion. This is just 6 cents to the dollar if we compare the ratio between the two. 

We are not arguing to choose between defense and development but getting the balance of investment right. And to optimize security spending that aligns with development outcomes. The questions is how to use both military and development budgets to invest in common outcomes. That’s the win-win. And how do you leverage one to get more of the other?

Military, police and intelligence institutions remain essential. And their budgets can also be a frontline to ensure dual outcomes that ensure national and people’s safety and well-being. 

Investments in technology that enhances wellbeing with protection, early warning and preparedness systems, vaccine production and access, AI integrity and strong rule of law and justice institutions prevent risks from becoming crises. 

Wherever the money comes from, we need to invest much more deliberately in prevention, and for the longer term. Each dollar invested in prevention can mean up to $103 in avoided conflict and crisis costs. For example, in the Philippines anticipatory systems can reach 125,000 vulnerable people three days before a Category 4 or 5 typhoon, before assets and savings are lost. 

Some of the new risks also require us to work differently. Cyber scams are a good example: they combine cybercrime, human trafficking, illicit finance and organized crime, and in many case promote cross border conflict. No single institution can make a dent in this. 

Ultimately, it is about getting a better security return from the investments we make. And where together, one-plus-one can be way beyond two. The opportunity is to find these investments that strengthen both.

What is meant by “the securitization of development” and why is it important to avoid securitizing development as you encourage governments to rethink the connections between development and security?

The risk is that development could come to be seen primarily through a security lens. Development through the lens of human wellbeing must remain an objective in its own right. That is reducing poverty, eliminating major diseases, a full education and decent jobs, affordable energy, water and food for all, protecting rights and enabling people to live with dignity.

The report argues that sustaining security – which is about a safer present and future for all not just a few – cannot be achieved without development defined as improved human wellbeing for all. Investing in people, institutions and resilience is not separate from security but is one of the most effective ways to achieve it. That is different from turning development into a security instrument. Development and security are mutually reinforcing.

Incentives matter. Development should be about enabling people to live free from fear, free from want and in dignity, expanding people’s capabilities, strengthening rights, improving access to services and creating opportunities.

This is why the report places such emphasis on people-centered security.........

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