The Asia-Pacific
Security Sector Governance Network
About IPF-SSG
Supported by DCAF and FES (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung), the Inter-Parliamentary Forum on Security Sector Governance in Southeast Asia (IPF-SSG) was an initiative running from 2006 to 2017 with the goal of supporting the role of parliaments in security sector governance by promoting peer-review and dialogue among parliamentarians and interested stakeholders of the region. IPF-SSG has counted 300 participants, including members of parliament, parliamentary staffers, government and security officials, academic experts and civil society representatives from Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The Forum featured, among others, regional workshops which address specific issues of parliamentary oversight of the security sector, such as national security policy development, defence budgeting and procurement, police governance and police reform, and judicial reform.
After a decade of lessons learned, DCAF decided to expand a similar approach of knowledge sharing to other actors and to the greater Asia-Pacific region. In 2018, we launched a new project on regional Security Sector Governance Forums. That project is at the core of this website at large.
About the IPF-SSG Secretary-General
Dr. Mario “Mayong” J. Aguja served as the IPF-SSG Secretary-General and is currently a Professor at the Department of Sociology of the Mindanao State University, General Santos City (MSU-GenSan), in the Philippines. He studied AB Sociology at the MSU-GenSan and earned his master’s degree in Sociology at the University of the Philippines, Diliman. He earned a doctorate degree in International Cooperation Studies at the Graduate School of International Development at Nagoya University, Japan. Professor Aguja is one of the founding members of the Akbayan Citizen’s Action Party and was a member of the House of Representatives of the Philippine Congress from 2002-2004 and 2004-2007, which is how he became initially involved in the IPF-SSG. He is additionally actively involved as a short-term consultant on security sector governance in Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar, and serves as the Vice-Chairperson of the Security Reform Imitative (SRI), Philippines.