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This policy brief by the Institute for Security Studies examines Liberia's transition to a peaceful democracy ahead of the October 2017 elections and the final drawdown of the UN peacekeeping mission (UNMIL) in March 2018. It argues that while Liberia has made progress, it requires a more coordinated approach to peacebuilding that leverages the comparative advantages of African regional and subregional organisations—such as the AU, ECOWAS, and the MRU—alongside traditional donors and the UN Peacebuilding Commission (PBC).

This report assesses the rural safety capacity lost by the phasing out of the South African National Defence Force’s (SANDF) Territorial Reserve, known as the Commandos, and evaluates the South African Police Service's (SAPS) ability to replace these functions. Through fieldwork in the Free State, Eastern Cape, and Gauteng, the author argues that while Commandos primarily protected the interests of the rural middle class and could be socially destructive if deployed inappropriately, they provided a critical force-multiplication capacity for policing agricultural crimes. The report concludes that the transition to SAPS is likely to result in a deterioration of rural policing because SAPS organizational incentives and national performance targets prioritize urban 'contact crimes' over rural property crimes.