The Integrated Security Fund (ISF) should be clearly defined and understood by all. It is a UK national security force multiplier that uses Official Development Assistance (ODA) means and resources to help achieve political, strategic, and security goals.

However, the strategy the ISF is designed to support is often unclear at country, regional, or thematic level. The evidence that it serves as a force multiplier is often based on wishful thinking rather than a purposeful integration of programmes and diplomacy based on good and timely learning and adaptation.

A successful ISF programme doesn’t buy change; it extends UK access and influence. This requires an active symbiotic relationship between the programme and diplomacy. Without this link, the ISF, the only cross-HMG mechanism in the conflict, stability and security space, risks becoming ineffective. The solution is not more money; it’s ensuring effectiveness.

Context

It is important to be clear about what the ISF is; and what it is not.

HMG has had a succession of conflict (then stability and now increasingly security) related funding instruments since 1997: the Africa and Global Conflict Prevention Pools (ACPP; GCPP); the Conflict Prevention Pool (CPP); the Conflict Pool (CP); the Conflict Security and Stability Fund (CSSF); and now the Integrated Security Fund (ISF).

Each iteration aimed to convene, coordinate and cohere cross-government action on cross-cutting issues. Each sought to overcome siloed approaches in government, focussing on desired strategic effects rather than inputs. Each sought to use developmental means to contribute towards a political-strategic end – reduced conflict; reduced instability; better security.

In this respect, the key to each has been the ability to blend defence, development and diplomatic engagement.  The main added value of UK conflict, stability and security programming has therefore been as a platform to choreograph a diverse range of HMG actions into a coherent whole.

Initially, the Pools and Funds resembled project or small grants schemes, with programme action often distinct from wider HMG action. However, over time, they’ve become more directly aligned with identified UK security objectives. Now, the ISF specifically seeks programmatic action that directly supports UK National Security priorities.

The ISF is not a project fund but a programmatic contribution to advancing HMG national security goals. Unlike themed peacebuilding and human rights funds, it supports a range of activities. The Fund is designed to seize programmatic opportunities that arise from complex and risky scenarios. Some actions aim to pick up opportunities as they arise, while others create them. The Fund’s catalytic, agile, and high-risk tolerance approach arises from the unpredictability of chance and the certainty that inaction will probably worsen the context.

The ISF is not an operational security fund or an alternative to direct security or defence capability targeting a UK national security threat. Instead, it focuses on helping to prevent or mitigate threats at source by supporting necessary capability development or partnerships of influence. Therefore, it complements UK defence and security capability, not replaces it.

Sweetspot

The ISF seeks to engage where there is a clearly identified risk or threat to UK concerns and interests; and where the activity supported by it clearly tackles a weakness or issue which is an obstacle to a UK desired endstate.

Whilst the observable activity supported by ISF might look technical – a training programme, or an investment in civic voice, or a peace process – this is rarely the start point.  Opportunities for the ISF to act usually come about through either existing (and sometimes long standing) relationships.  Or they are rooted in the need to have access to and influence with new actors not easily susceptible to conventional diplomacy alone.  The ISF gives practical edge to UK efforts to shape the choices and actions of others in a dynamic and complex setting.

The ISF ‘sweetspot’ then, is one where the UK either has or needs political access and influence and where it has the technical means to engage – often in the so-called pre-conflict, sub-threshold ‘grey zone’ before war fighting.  In this respect, the ISF offers a cost effective way to mitigate crisis and insecurity before conditions merit the kind of war fighting capability envisaged in the 2025 Strategic Defence Review.

Strategic clarity

To support UK strategy, the ISF needs clarity on UK objectives. It’s the only HMG instrument working across government on conflict stability and security, but it shouldn’t drive strategy; it should support and inform it. However, UK national security policy at country, region and thematic levels is often too high-level to guide programming choices, and UK national security action is often implemented largely at a tactical level.

The ISF then provides a unique ‘Goldilocks’ opportunity to bridge the gap between policy and action, fostering deeper and more meaningful relationships through strategic partnerships.

Without strategic clarity, the ISF risks wasting time and energy without delivering value. The issue isn’t only ISF action, but also how the rest of HMG utilises the potential that it offers.

Learning and adaptation

The ISF engages with contexts and issues characterised by uncertainty, making it challenging to determine the best approach, who to involve, and when and how to act. ISF programmes must learn quickly about effective strategies and adapt their approaches in real time to be effective.

ISF programmes and diplomacy are inter-related and symbiotic, and the Funds value added offer to HMG is to maximise this. ISF programming is the art of blending programmes and diplomacy to support a wider outcome than either might manage alone. This is not the work of a project fund, but of a strategically conceived and pro-actively delivered strategy instrument.

The role of Monitoring Evaluation and Learning (MEL)

In the context of the ISF, MEL is only partly about driving accountability and keeping cost down.  (Although these are important concerns.)

Every ISF programme must demonstrate its worth through sound programmatic practice. However, in the current UK context, every taxpayer pound must work harder to justify its expenditure. Good, strategic MEL in and around an ISF programme generates evidence to improve programme choices and action, and supports, informs and advances UK policy and strategy.

Programmes which cannot sing for their supper do not deserve to be funded.

The UK International Development Committee (IDC) is conducting an enquiry into the UK Integrated Security Fund (ISF).  Some thoughts to be going on with.