ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book is testimony to the emergent nature of human security as an idea, as a useful construct and as an operational strategy. It focuses on one of the most imaginative but disputed voluntary initiatives of the decade, that of the UN Global Compact (UNGC), which was designed to provide a learning space for business and the UN to think about how markets could help deliver the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The book also focuses on healthcare issues in Africa and talks about the human security paradigm to the world's largest and most financially prosperous nation and critiques the lack of universal healthcare in the USA. It then focuses on oil in Angola and coltan mining in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and, highlights the links between international business and human security and what has come to be known as the 'resource curse'.
