SALO’s work broadly falls into six strategic focus areas (with some overlap between them):
- Building international, regional and national consensus on peace, human security and development
- Engaging, influencing and interpreting SA foreign policy
- Deepening North-South partnerships
- Deepening South-South partnerships
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Combating xenophobia, focusing on migration and diaspora - Mainstreaming for Gender as well as promoting women’s, children’s and LGBTI rights
SALO’s focus is on bringing divergent and diverse positions and interests together through various forms of dialogue to generate evidence-informed decision-making in crisis and conflict situations. Our strategic initiatives therefore encompass particular themes as well as different groups of people in policy, issue and interest groups. SALO’s main activities include:
- Multi-stakeholder dialogues (public or closed-door)
- Small-scale dialogue meetings, often closed and with specific focus groups
- Informal meetings/soft advocacy/networking
- Information sharing with policy-makers
- Building relationships among stakeholders
- Awareness-raising through media and other platforms
- Meetings with regional and national civil society networks and grassroots communites
- Research and publication
- Multi-media production and dissemination
In some cases, a single activity may be part of several strategic focus areas, as when a dialogue conference about Swaziland brings together a range of Southern diplomatic actors and integrates a discussion around gender. Some strategic focus areas include specific time-bound projects while others are on-going, long-term processes with multiple supporters.