The politicisation of aid has made helping others increasingly dangerous. The fortified aid compound is now ubiquitous throughout the global borderland. It has become the signature architecture, for example, of the UN integrated mission. In examining these developments,
the paper first looks at the potential for UN field-security training to normalise risk-aversion and the necessity, even desirability, of defensive living. Using the example of Sudan, the wider implications of aid bunkering, including its overlaps with such global trends as urban
splintering and the proliferation of gated-communities are also examined. The fortified aid compound is symptomatic of the deepening impasse within the development-security nexus.

Link to the publication