This €15 million programme helps promote peace, security, stability and democracy across Southern Africa in line with the SADC Treaty. The chosen approach is to strengthen the regional peace and security architecture in the areas of conflict prevention and resolution as well as public and human security. The programme focuses on four main results:

1. Strengthened capacity for electoral assistance in SADC;
2. Enhanced capacity in SADC for gender-sensitive conflict prevention, management and resolution;
3. Strengthened capacity of SADC Member States to uphold and enhance cross-border safety and security;
4. Strengthened SADC capacity to address the prevalence of sexual and gender-based violence (GBV).

An additional extension was granted until December 2023 to enable the programme to address electoral related conflict in four SADC Member States holding elections in 2023: Eswatini, Madagascar, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Zimbabwe, as part of the continued and broader initiative to sustain and promote peace and stability in the region. This will also serve to sustain and consolidate the outcomes and gains of the SPSS programme.

Some of the key outputs produced by the programme include:

• Support to the deployment of SADC electoral observation missions since 2019 and training of 226 short-term and 66 long-term electoral observers;
• A regional assessment on the progress of women participation in SADC´s peace and security structures and processes conducted between December 2021 and July 2022;
• Two significant Protocols reviewed and adopted: 1) the SADC Protocol on the Control of Firearms, Ammunition and Other Related Materials to strengthen efforts to effectively control the proliferation of illicit Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW); and 2) the Protocol Against Trafficking of Persons, which was approved by the Summit of Heads of State and Government in August 2022;
• Development of the Regional Integrated Strategy to Prevent and Combat Transnational Organised Crime and its Action Plan, which was approved by the Ministerial Committee of the Organ in 2021;
• Support for the establishment of the Regional Counter-Terrorism Centre (RCTC) in Tanzania;
• Adoption of the Regional Strategy to Prevent and Combat Transnational Organised Crime: 520 trainers were trained on various aspects of transnational organised crime, including cybercrime, trafficking in persons and smuggling of migrants, counter terrorism, combating illicit drug trafficking, application of DNA analysis to GBV cases, combating proliferation on illicit SALW, amongst others.
• Development of a Regional Model Law on GBV to guide national legislation.