Over the past four decades, SADC has been able to substantially advance the strategic goal of regional cooperation, coordination and eventual integration on many levels and is a prominent fixture on the Southern African landscape. Yet, despite sophisticated policies and strategies and a dominant regional power, it seems unable to galvanise the region to adopt a collective approach to the multitude of threats it faces. This report examines the state of the region’s defence and security sectors, and considers the conditions under which SADC can adopt the logic of anticipatory governance and the identification of complex priorities, to give meaning to the preferable future of a stable and prosperous region. The report advises on foresight steps that will enable SADC to address the crisis in Cabo Delgado in northern Mozambique. It further recommends a deep security sector reform process on national and regional levels to prepare the ground for steering the region’s peace and security agenda towards the achievement of a preferable future.
