DCAF Brussels
Pursuant to DCAF's Strategy Paper, DCAF Brussels was established in September 2005 to enhance cooperation with the EU and the Brussels-based international community, underlining the key role of these institutions in promoting democratic governance of the security sector. As an association sans but lucratif (ASBL), DCAF Brussels is a legally and financially independent actor under Belgian law.
The key mission of DCAF Brussels is to provide a platform for deepening DCAF's cooperation with the EU and the international community. DCAF Brussels is intended to fulfil three principal objectives: to promote the SSR and SSG concepts within the Brussels community; to establish DCAF's input into the development of EU policy in these areas; and to provide research and advice on SSR/G, in particular on oversight and accountability, to the European institutions. As such, DCAF has briefed committees of the European Parliament and produced commissioned papers on SSR.
DCAF Brussels also manages an ongoing series of papers on Crisis Management. This range of papers began in 2011 and initially investigated crisis management in the EU institutions, in three papers in cooperation with ISIS Europe: Security Sector Reform Missions under CSDP: Addressing Current Needs; The politics of EU civilian interventions and the strategic deficit of CSDP and International Peace Mediation: A new crossroads for the European Union. The series now continues with other partners, in a broader spectrum of analysis - investigating global conceptualisations of crisis management and international responses to current crises and development of security systems and human security.
Finally, DCAF is a founding partner of the CSDP Mission Analysis Partnership (www.csdpmap.eu), a highly regarded and comprehensive information tool on CSDP, with research and analysis from 27 research institutes and think-tanks from around Europe. DCAF Brussels provides the hosting for the Perspectives series – a high level discussion group on SSR with Ambassadors of countries that host CSDP missions.
