Sustainable Security

Research in the NTS Centre has been reconceptualised to reflect global changes in the last few years and certainly amid COVID-19. Given these developments, we organise and reflect our research in two components of Non-Traditional Security – Crises and Sustainable Security – found in our region and globally. Recasting NTS Centre’s research around these two research streams underscores the need to address transnational security threats with a whole-of-society approach. It also aims to capture the comprehensive nature of non-traditional security whilst communicating the two streams that our research covers. It puts the NTS Centre on the front foot in terms of organising our research in a structured and consistent way and places the NTS Centre well for exploring external collaboration and partnership opportunities that mirrors NTS Centre’s expertise.

The research programme on Sustainable Security examines slow onset scenarios with long-term impacts such as climate, food and economic security. Sustainable security involves strengthening the capacities of states to address regional non-traditional and transnational security threats, as well as boosting cooperation among multiple stakeholders. The NTS Centres explores how countries and regional bodies build capacity, mobilise and share resources and expertise, as well as provide the platform for non-state actors like the private sector, civil society organisations, the international community, and local communities, to be engaged in helping the region cope with the complexities of NTS challenges. In this regard, this research programme covers three core areas: climate security, food security and economic security.

Core Research Areas

Climate change — 2011 severe flooding in Thailand cost more than US$45 billion (Credit: Wikimedia).

Climate Security
Climate change is a threat multiplier whose impacts are already seen in the increasing intensity and frequency of climate-related disasters. The Centre focuses on two research components: Planetary Health and Climate Change Adaptation.
- Planetary Health
  
  Planetary Health examines economic and development progress as the cause of environmental degradation that poses threats to human health. Growing material wealth, inequalities, and the current resource-intensive economic activities serve as main drivers of these threats, as is the structure of the international trading system which all lead to environmental pressures and resource depletion beyond national borders. Since the health of the planet is the prerequisite for human health and human civilisation, the planetary health concept advocates for systems-level and cross-sectoral interventions that are aimed towards nature protection and conservation. The Centre began the development of a multi-disciplinary research project on Planetary Health in 2021 collaborating with individual researchers and schools across NTU.
- Climate Change Adaptation
  Considering serious concerns brought about by the changing climate, policies in addressing climate change no longer look only at mitigation but increasingly have a strong focus on adaptation. While there has been a lot of debate on mitigation and disaster risk reduction at the global level, particularly for regions that are vulnerable to climate change, adaptation has become a more important consideration. The Centre examines climate adaptation efforts by:
  - Auditing climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction policies at national level across the region;
  - Comparing the frameworks for climate change cooperation across regions;
  - Examining regional cooperation mechanisms for climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts;
  - Analysing regional climate change cooperation on selected sectors including transportation, energy and cities; and
  - Examining north-south and south-south cooperation for climate mitigation and adaptation measures in the region.
In addition, the Centre also looks into other relevant aspects including the development of smart cities, urban resilience, and relevant environmental risks brought about by the 4th Industrial Revolution.
Food Security
Access to markets for both consumers and producers is critical in ensuring food security of communities (Credit: World Bank / flickr).

Food production and food security have suffered from changing temperatures and less stable access to water, both globally and within the Asia-Pacific region. For smallholder agricultural communities, farming is becoming a less reliable source of food and income, driving some to hunger or even displacement. Cities, where two-thirds of the world population are expected to reside by 2050, are increasingly vulnerable as they source most of their food from rural areas or abroad. Weather disturbances create the risk that food shipments are disrupted, while volatility in global food prices could make food economically inaccessible.

Building on the Centre’s previous research on climate-related food production vulnerabilities, it now looks towards cities as potential solutions, by increasing urban food self-sufficiency. In this regard, the Centre examines key economic and policy issues related to scaling up indoor farms in cities, the rural-urban interface, and the balance between food supply (mainly from rural areas) and demand (mainly from urban areas) in the context of emerging disruptive technologies.

Given different climatic environments, food supply chains are becoming increasingly fragmented across multiple countries, making food borne diseases (FBDs) harder to track. This is aggravated when disease pathogens develop resistance to the antimicrobials intended to address them, a trend known as ‘antimicrobial resistance’ (AMR). In this regard, the Centre is assessing the relevance and viability of the revolutionary Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) technology, which maps the genome of food and related diseases in order to identify the geographical source of diseases across the supply chain and track trends of AMR. This is in collaboration with the NTU Food Technology Centre (NAFTEC), which specializes in these technologies.

Economic Security

The programme hopes to open up critical questions about mobility, citizenship and the nation state and how global and regional policies governing the movement of people can impact these areas. There are three categories of research under this pillar.

This 2006 photo shows children in a Karnataka slum. Urban development is an increasing problem for cities that attract rural migration.(Credit: Asian Development Bank)
- International and Regional Frameworks
  Research in this area will look at how regulatory regimes monitor and govern the flow of people across the world and more specifically across Southeast Asia and wider Asia-Pacific. There are more than 100 million migrants from Asia-Pacific living outside their own countries and more than 60 million international migrants living in the region. The Asia-Pacific is the largest contributor to international migration globally. The region also received nearly US$ 284 billion in remittances from migrant workers in 2017, accounting for 62 percent of the global total. These figures stress the need for policy-oriented research into these movements as it affects both sending and receiving countries in the region. The research also aims to look at the role played by the private sector and States’ authority in shaping migration governance.
- The Future of Work and Movement of People
  Labour migration plays a prominent role in Southeast Asia’s development and prosperity especially in light of technological advancements and the future of work. The expected displacement of workers as a result of technology and digitization, especially for those in the informal sector, can trigger large movements of people in search of jobs. Research in this area will look into the use of technology in key industries, such as the manufacturing sector, and how this might create labour displacement. It aims to collect baseline information on these potential movements and help inform policies aimed at addressing these issues including (1) monitoring labour movements in both sending and receiving countries, (b) reviewing current labour migration mechanisms in place in receiving countries, and (c) setting up of necessary social safety nets and other forms of protection for displaced workers as part of migration governance.
- Human Trafficking
  The establishment of the ASEAN Economic Blueprint 2025 foretells greater intra-region mobility of people in pursuit of economic security and exacerbates human trafficking as a non-traditional security risk in Southeast Asia. The research aims to provide a reliable source of primary data on human trafficking in Southeast Asia to support and inform the formulation of comprehensive national and regional anti-trafficking policies by governments, international organisations, civil society organisations and the private sector. It also aims to produce a knowledge base for trafficking-related issues in Southeast Asia including, human trafficking and its implications on regional security, the use of technology to address human trafficking, as well as national and regional anti-trafficking governance.