The work of the ISS is made possible through the generous support of donor partners. Current ISS donors are:
Partnership Forum
European Union
Government of Denmark
Government of Ireland
Government of the Netherlands
Government of Norway
Government of Sweden
Hanns Seidel Foundation
Open Society Foundations
Project funding
Adelphi Research Gemeinnutzige GmbH
Berghof Foundation Operations GmbH
British Peace Support Team (Africa)
Conseil de L'Entente
Eastern African Standby Force
Embassy of Chile in South Africa
Embassy of Finland, Pretoria, Fund for Local Cooperation
Embassy of Spain
Embassy of the Czech Republic
Federal Department of Foreign Affairs
Foreign & Commonwealth Office/Conflict Stability & Security
Georgetown University
GIZ
Government of Australia
Government of Germany
Government of Namibia
Government of Senegal
Government of Switzerland
Government of United Kingdom
Government of the United States of America/USAID
Humanity United
Igarape Inc.
International Committee of the Red Cross
International Development Research Centre
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Millennium Trust
Norwegian Institute for International Affairs
Omega Research Foundation
Open Society Foundation
Open Society Policy Centre
Oxford University
Sabinet
Seven Passes Initiative
Social Justice Initiative
Southern Africa Trust
United Nations
United Nations Development Programme
United States Institute for Peace
University of Denver Pardee Centre
University of Edinburgh
University of Exeter
Wellspring Philanthropic Fund
World Childhood Foundation
World Bank
ISS financial records are published in the Annual Review. To access the Annual Review, click here
The ISS was founded in 1991 as the Institute for Defence Policy by the former executive director, Dr Jakkie Cilliers, together with Mr PB Mertz. In 1996, the organisation was renamed the Institute for Security Studies.
‘We often forget the difficult times of our past and where we come from’, says Cilliers reflecting on the origins of the ISS. 'The idea and motivation for the ISS was born during a meeting organised by Institute for Democracy in Africa (IDASA) between a number of concerned South Africans and members of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the ANC, in Lusaka in May 1990. This was a groundbreaking conference of South African and other security specialists and analysts – the first of its kind despite the unbanning of the ANC earlier that year’. The meeting was dominated by a debate on the future of the military in a post-settlement South Africa that took place between Chris Hani, commander of MK, and Cilliers. Several years before this meeting, Cilliers had resigned from the South African Defence Force (SADF) for political reasons.
Shortly after the May 1990 meeting, the forerunner of the ISS – the Institute for Defence Policy (IDP) – was established with a staff of three people. 'These were difficult times as South Africa was still under National Party apartheid rule’, says Cilliers. ‘Former military comrades considered me – a former Lieutenant Colonel in field artillery – a traitor, so the phones of the IDP and its staff were tapped; we were under heavy intimidation by the Civilian Cooperation Bureau and the lives of staff and those associated with staff were in considerable danger. Ironically, our credibility was guaranteed by an MK enquiry into whether the IDP was an apartheid government military front organisation, only to find out that military intelligence thought we were an ANC front organisation’.
For a non-governmental organisation, working on security issues at this time in South Africa was a major challenge. ‘We shouldn't forget that civil war threatened’, explains Cilliers. ‘The true transition of power in South Africa didn't happen during the elections of 1994, but during the events in the former homeland of Bophuthatswana. The SADF neutralised the right wing coup there organised by the leader of the Freedom Front, a former chief of the SADF, General Constant Viljoen, and a band of rag-tag racist thugs (the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging). The former SADF was a formidable military force and "white" South Africa was a heavily militarised society during a time of regional war and internal unrest’, says Cilliers.
Nevertheless, despite the challenges, the applied policy work of the IDP meant that the organisation played a key role in South Africa’s transition from an apartheid state to a democracy. After 1996 the work of the ISS focused less on South Africa and took on a regional dimension, resulting in the thriving continental organisation that exists today.
The development of the ISS would not have been possible without the support of partners from South Africa and the international community. The first funds that ISS received were from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Bonn, and Anglo American and De Beers Chairman’s Fund. Subsequently the Hanns Seidel Foundation became an important partner of the ISS, along with many valued local and international partners.