Security Sector Reform (SSR), aims to ensure the development of effective, efficient, affordable and accountable security institutions. Since the 1990s, SSR is increasingly becoming a part of mandates and decisions in both UN and AU institutions. 

UN support to the AU in SSR began in 2009, soon after the establishment of the UN SSR Office the same year. The main partners to the AU SSR program are the EU and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) with the non-governmental African Security Sector Network (ASSN) providing much of the technical support. After the AU, DPKO and EU signed a trilateral MoU, the AU SSR capacity program was launched in January 2013. 

The AU SSR capacity program began with a normative approach but is progressively moving to technical and programmatic support to AU member states and PSOs.  On a normative level, in January 2013, the AU Assembly adopted the AU Policy Framework on SSR. This document provides member states with guidance and principals on how they should develop and adapt their security infrastructure.  Pursuant to this guidance note, the AU has participated in numerous SSR conferences and workshops on the continent and has initiated several trainings in collaboration with the RECs. The AU now has four full time SSR staff at AU HQ and has deployed permanent SSR staff to its field missions in CAR, Mali and Guinea Bissau. 

Upon a request for assistance from an AU member state, in-depth consultations with the government and partners are held before the SSR program conducts a joint assessment mission.  As of 2015, the AU, together with UNDPKO and the EU and the relevant REC, have conducted joint assessment missions to the Comoros, South Sudan, Libya, CAR, Madagascar and Guinea Bissau,  with future missions scheduled for Mali and Somalia. The joint reports issued after these missions include an analysis of the SSR situation and jointly agreed recommendations on how the AU and other partners can assist the national government in their SSR process. 

The AU SSR engagement in Madagascar has been a particular successful model of cooperation.  The government requested and the AU deployed a SSR consultant to work in the Office of the Prime Minister. Together with UNDP and the UN Peacebuilding Commission, the AU is assisting the government in its national consultation process which will result in the convening of a national SSR conference to generate a vision, strategy and program to address the many needs in reforming the Malagasy security services. 

Throughout this process, UNOAU has worked with the AU to ensure effective coordination with the UN, EU and other partners as well as to provide technical assistance where required.  As the first phase of the SSR program ends in 2015, UNOAU will assist the AU in developing a new SSR program that will be primarily funded by AU-managed funding streams. As the AU increasingly takes ownership of the program, the composition of the AU SSR Steering Committee, currently composed of the UN, AU, ASSN, Norway and the Netherlands, will likely change to better reflect the composition of APSA.