partners in a mutually beneficial fashion. The expansion of these roles have culminated in assisting the creation of a society where NGOs serve as important players in the global arena in regards to maintaining human security. Due to this increasing influence and the emergence of growing natural and man-made disasters, NGOs now are contracted by governments in order to adequately respond to crises, as well as assist individual or collectivised groups of citizens in lobbying their interests; thus culminating in the ability to enact, influence and change government agendas. However, NGOs are still largely dependent on certain levels of government funding, hence critics may argue that NGOs pose the ability to potentially damage issues of human security due to this financial dependence. Despite these critiques, the focus, expertise and infrastructure developed by NGOs through their activities linked with human development and human rights allow them to make unique contributions to human security provision. Relationship with the environment Comprehensive human security attempts to unify environmental security together with social (societal) security. A great number of intertwined environmental and social components together create the framework for comprehensive human security under the assumption that neither of those two categories is attainable in the long run without synergy between the two. That is to say that the trends in environmental, resource, and population stresses are intensifying and will increasingly determine the quality of human life on our planet and as such are a large determining factor of our social security. Arthur H. Westing posits that the two interdependent branches of comprehensive human security can be broken down into a series of subcomponents to better achieve optimal environmental and social security. Environmental security is composed of two subcomponents: (a) Rational resource utilization, that is resource use that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Social security can be simplified to components of (a) Established political safeguards, (b) Economic safeguards, (c) Personal safeguards, and (d) Military safeguards. The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) states that a major goal of comprehensive human security is to “transmit practical recommendations to policy-makers on how to strengthen human security through better environmental management and more effective natural resource governance.” The overreaching goal being a pervasive global mindset that recognizes the interdependent natures of the natural environment and our collective social security. Gender and human security Human security focuses