Through its Outreach and Knowledge Services, DCAF’s International Security Sector Advisory Team fosters a learning environment for security and justice practitioners to exchange information, share good practice and facilitate communication. These activities aim to bring about a whole-of-government and whole-of-system approach by its International Partner Group  Members, facilitate greater coordination, broaden knowledge on security and justice reform lessons, trends and challenges, and encourage the use of good practice across the wider international community. 

Support to policy development

International Partner Group Members can draw on DCAF to assist them with developing governmental and multilateral policies related to security and justice reform. This can range from mappings of donor engagement in a specific geographic or thematic area, facilitation of discussions within the institution, to the provision of technical advice and support to wider sensitisation and consultation activities.

For example, we supported Norway through a series of workshops to develop its new policy for supporting SSR. DCAF also supported the African Union to conduct consultation workshops as part of their process to develop the African Union Policy Framework on SSR.

Methodology and guidance development

We have developed context-adaptable methodologies and guidance for supporting security and justice reform based on analysis and lessons from its own experience and that of other practitioners. These are developed based on needs and gaps and complement guidance from other sources. 

Trends and challenges 

The breadth and depth of our support to security and justice processes, as well as the range of national and international actors that it assists, provides a great opportunity to build an in-depth understanding of the trends and challenges of supporting security and justice reform. This can feed into supporting International Partner Members to develop their policies and approaches to assistance, as well as identifying areas to draw lessons and develop new, innovative approaches.   

Closing the Learning Gap

We offer a platform for dialogue for government officials, programme teams, policy-makers, civil society representatives and security and justice practitioners to consider core issues, such as the extent to which international approaches, structures, norms and processes are adapting to keep pace with contemporary sources of insecurity. We regularly organise or contribute to our Members’ learning on SSG/R through various different international platforms and convening events. 

Data for Better Programming

SSG/R still lacks a coherent set of indicators combining qualitative and quantitative measures for security, justice and governance. The current indices that SSG/R programming uses tend to reflect changes in conflict, fragility, rule of law, terrorism, peace, civil society. None of the indices combine the appropriate indicators to measure progress or change in the security and justice reform process.

DCAF is developing an on-demand, web-based service that offers indicators on security, governance and justice to its International Partners that are easy to integrate into SSG/R programming and provides instant data. The two flagship products in this category are include a Security, Justice and Governance Indicators Database as well as a SSG/R and Conflict Prevention Framework. 

Advisory Products 

Our Advisory Products underline the relevance of SSG/R to emerging policy frameworks, giving donors the necessary background to facilitate their “seat at the table” for policy level discussions on SSG/R and related topics. They include, for example, a series of studies shared with International Partner group members on COVID-19 and SSG/R.

The products usually include policy-level recommendations on how to anchor SSG/R within new policy frameworks and how to respond to new security and development challenges. They are also used by our International Partner Group  representatives in order to raise cross-government awareness on the relevance of the SSG/R agenda, as well as mobilise funding and justify resource allocation.

The Security and Justice Reform Community of Practice

Our Security and Justice Reform Community of Practice (CoP) provides staff member of the International Partner Group Members with easy access to the collective wisdom and experience of the community while providing an environment where they can collaborate on the continuous development of good practice for security and justice reform.