SADC Security Integration

The SADC Security Integration project was launched in January 2003 as a two-pronged, two-year project, consisting of a research programme and workshops. The research programme concentrated on the prospects and possibilities of security integration in the Southern African region, but did so by viewing the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Co-operation (OPDS) in a comparative perspective in order for SADC to benefit from the lessons learnt in other regions of the world.

Key stakeholders among governments and civil society groups in the SADC region were invited to the workshops to discuss how the ambitious goals of the OPDS Protocol could best be pursued in practice. The first workshop on SADC security integration, held at Jan Smuts House in June 2003, resulted in a SAIIA report as well as several academic articles. In 2004, increased attention focused on SADC’s contributions to the African Union’s evolving security architecture. Dr Anne Hammerstad headed the project.

• Project Publications

• Op-ed Pieces

• Project Events

• Links to related websites