Established in 1991, the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) partners with African and international stakeholders to inform and advise decision makers, develop evidence-based policies and practices, and build capacity on security and development, sustainable peace, and governance in Africa. The ISS has also developed a powerful forecasting capability, using the International Futures platform to identify future risks and opportunities across development, industrialisation, demographics, technology and climate change.

The ISS is independent, credible and has a reputation for delivering impact locally, nationally, regionally and internationally. Headquartered in Pretoria, South Africa, the organisation has regional offices in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Dakar, Senegal; Nairobi, Kenya; and Yaoundé, Cameroon. The institute's decentralised approach is underpinned by efficient governance structures and financial sustainability.

Our work covers African agency in global governance, migration, conflict early warning, climate change, food security, development forecasting, violent extremism and organised crime, maritime threats, policing and criminal justice, and digital and technology threats. Using our networks and influence, we provide timely, evidence-based research, practical training and technical assistance to governments and civil society, helping decision makers act on what is happening and what to do next.

ISS financial records and development partners are published in the Annual Review. To access the Annual Review, click here

🔹 Collaboration & partnership – relationships with experts and institutions that maximise shared impact.

🔹 Research & analysis – evidence that informs policy and programming, not just headlines.

🔹 Local-to-global dialogues – a bridge from national realities to continental and global policy.

🔹 Technical assistance – sustained, practical support that navigates real bureaucratic obstacles.

🔹 Capacity building – tailored training that strengthens institutions from within.

🔹 Enhancing African ownership & global influence – strengthening African agency in multilateral settings, and building coordinated, better-managed migration governance.

🔹 Conflict early warning & fostering peace – narrowing the gap between warning and response, and tackling climate change and food insecurity as drivers of instability.

🔹 Forecasting Africa's development futures – using the International Futures platform to model alternative pathways for demographics, growth, governance and trade.

🔹 Accountable governance & the rule of law – confronting violent extremism, organised crime, maritime threats, policing gaps and digital & AI-driven risks.

Trustees

The ISS is registered as a non-profit trust in South Africa and is accountable to a board of trustees.

Dr Jakkie Cilliers is the founder and former executive director of the ISS. He currently serves as Chair of the ISS Board of Trustees, Head of ISS' African Futures and Innovation (AFI) programme, and Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria. Jakkie's 2017 best-seller Fate of the Nation addresses South Africa's futures from political, economic and social perspectives. His three most recent books, Africa First! Igniting a Growth Revolution (March 2020), The Future of Africa: Challenges and Opportunities (April 2021), and Africa Tomorrow: Pathways to Prosperity (June 2022) analyse the continent as a whole.

Dr Ayanda Ntsaluba is an Executive Director of Discovery Limited. He has extensive expertise in health care, government relations and management. He is a member of the Lancet–University of Oslo Commission on Global Governance for health and serves on the board of the Albert and Nokukhanya Luthuli Peace and Development Institute. He is also a member of the South African Chapter of the BRICS Business Council, a trustee of the Clinix Health Group and the Trustee of South Africa's Solidarity Fund.

Cassim Coovadia is Chairman of the National Business Initiative, the Trust for Urban Housing Finance (TUHF) and FinmarkTrust. He is the Sherpa for B20 South Africa and serves on the boards of YES and the Wits Business School.

Prof Gilbert M Khadiagala is Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. He trained as a political scientist in Kenya, Canada and the United States, and specialises in African international relations, conflict management and resolution, regional and sub-regional institutions, and comparative political institutions.

Dr Iraj Abedian is the founder and Chairman of Pan-African Capital Holdings and founder and CEO of Pan-African Investment and Research Services. His experience includes group chief economist at Standard Bank and non-executive director at Transnet and SA Tourism. Iraj was also on former South African president Thabo Mbeki's Economic Advisory Panel.

Lindiwe Mazibuko is a South African public leader, writer and advocate for ethical political leadership. She was the first black South African woman elected leader of the official opposition and served as a Member of Parliament from 2009 to 2014. Lindiwe is the founder and CEO of Futurelect. She has held fellowships at Harvard's Institute of Politics and the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, and is a trustee of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund and the Constitution Hill Trust.

Dr Marianne Camerer is an interdisciplinary scholar at the University of Cape Town's Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance working on anti-corruption, democratic governance and accountable leadership. She convenes the Public Leadership and Governance module of the Master of Development Policy and Practice. After starting her research career at ISS in 1995, she co-founded the international NGO, Global Integrity, in Washington, DC. Marianne is a Yale World Fellow and serves on the board of Corruption Watch, South Africa.

Until her untimely passing in September 2025, Maxi Schoeman served as a valued trustee. She was Professor Emeritus (Political Sciences) at the University of Pretoria where she lead the Ocean Regions Programme, a Visiting Professor at King's College, London and a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa.

Dr Solange Rosa is Director of the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Cape Town's (UCT) Graduate School of Business. She has been an independent public policy consultant, associate faculty adviser at UCT's Allan Gray Centre for Values-based Leadership, and lecturer at the UCT Graduate School of Business and UCT School of Economics. Solange also headed the Western Cape government's Policy and Strategy Unit in the Department of the Premier.

Dr Wendy Ngoma is the former acting deputy director-general for institutional planning and support at the Department of Science and Innovation. She is also a former director of the Wits Business School and has worked as an academic at the Wits Graduate School of Government. She is an alumnus of the INSEAD Social Entrepreneurship Programme.

Advisory Council

An international Advisory Council meets annually to advise the ISS on strategic policy and management issues.

Chairperson: Amb Mohamed Ibn Chambas, AU High Representative for Silencing the Guns, and Chair, AU High-Level Panel on Sudan

Members:

• Dr Agostinho Zacarias, Founder of Agos Consulting
• Amb Baso Sangqu, SVP AngloGold Ashanti 
• Amb Mahboub Maalim, Chairman, Equalisation Fund Advisory Board, National Treasury
• Amb Idriss Mohamed, Special Advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Djibouti
• Finda Koroma, Chief Executive Officer, Africa Human Capital Development Plus
• Sagal Abashir, Climate strategist, The Clean Fight 
• Patrick Youssef, Regional Director for Africa, International Committee of the Red Cross
• Amb Maman Sambo Sidikou, Ambassador and Associates and GCERF Special Envoy for Africa
• Edite Ten Jua, Minister, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and Communities, São Tomé and Príncipe

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

Government of the United States of America/USAID
Hanns Seidel Foundation
Open Society Foundations

Project funding

British Embassy, Addis Ababa

Centre For Development and Enterprise
NPC
DCAF – Geneva Centre for Security Sector GovernanceGIZ
Government of Australia
Government of Canada
Government of Finland
Government of Germany

Government of Spain
Government of United Kingdom
Humanity United
ICLEI-Local Government for Sustainability
Africa NPC
International Development Research Centre
International Organization for Migration
International Organization of la Francophonie OIF
Millennium Trust
New Venture Fund
Open Society Initiative for West Africa
Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust
Reos Partners (Pty) Ltd
Robert Bosch Stiftung
South African Cities Network
Standard Bank
Stichting T.M.C Asser Instituut
TorchLight Group Limited T/A Tag International
United Nations
University of Witwatersrand
Wellspring Philanthropic Fund
World Childhood Foundation
World Health Organization

ISS financial records are published in the Annual Review.

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.