Across Africa, two powerful trends are unfolding: rising levels of conflict and fragility, and a surge of investment in the extractive sector, driven by the global energy transition. These dynamics often converge in the same regions, fuelling demand for private security companies that provide essential protection and risk management services in volatile environments.
However, these fragile contexts are what security scholars often call “hybrid security environments,” characterised by a weak state presence and multiple public and private security providers engaged in ad hoc security arrangements with varying degrees of legitimacy, authority, and oversight.
This raises the risk for companies of being implicated in human rights abuses, triggering legal liabilities, sanctions, and reputational harm. Poor security sector governance can also inflame community grievances and social tensions, potentially sparking protests and violence and negatively impacting companies’ social licence to operate.
Whether in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) or northern Mozambique, the private sector will derive long-term value from a more stable operating environment. Therefore, it makes sense for businesses to play a more active role in strengthening security sector governance – something that is too often seen purely as the role of the state. By committing to transparency, accountability, and respect for local communities, companies can help ensure that security provision fosters stability, protects human rights, and contributes to sustainable peace and development.
These challenges form the foundation of an ongoing research project supported by the Southern Africa Trust (SAT), examining the impact of mining on vulnerable communities in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, and across the region, with full reports soon to be made available on our website, www.gga.org
It is difficult to determine the size of the private security industry in southern Africa. Publicly available data across countries is inconsistent, and where registers do exist, they are often incomplete or outdated. Not all states have well-established regulatory and licensing authorities, making it difficult to maintain accurate registers of personnel or firms. There is also no standard regional definition of “private security”: some include only guarding services while others include a far wider range of security and risk management functions, from surveillance to armed convoy services.
In South Africa, which maintains fairly reliable data on the industry, there are more than 2.7 million registered private security officers, of which 650,000 are actively employed by just over 16,000 registered security businesses, placing this workforce well above combined police and military in numbers. While reliable figures from other southern African states are limited, in many countries, private security companies are often among the largest employers outside of the state.
Southern Africa does not have an inter-state regional protocol on the regulation of private security, and across the region regulatory oversight of the private security industry remains inconsistent. In many cases, the sector is either left entirely unregulated or subject to weak and ineffective controls. Nearly half of the 16 countries in southern Africa lack dedicated frameworks for governing private security operations, and even fewer have independent regulatory agencies in charge of monitoring compliance. Legislation is also often outdated, given the industry’s rapid growth, the impact of technological innovation, and the expanding range of activities that private security companies now undertake.
The lack of strong regulatory oversight across southern African states creates a range of potential risks. Where there is an absence of oversight, reporting mechanisms, and appropriate disciplinary measures, malpractice and rights violations can occur without consequences. Conflicts of interest, such as police officials having vested interests in private security companies, can distort state security provision and generate unfair competition practices.
A lack of proper vetting for private security officers allows individuals with criminal records into the industry, undermining the sector’s credibility and safety. Similarly, the absence of minimum training standards allows unqualified personnel to provide security services, exposing the public to greater risks. Low barriers to entry can be exploited by the industry, and without proper monitoring, labour laws can be skirted, with security officers working long hours, for low wages, in adverse conditions. The industry also tends to be male-dominated, and where regulation and monitoring are weak, women can face additional systemic risk of exploitation.
Today, security services in the extractives sector are often delivered through secondments of police officers or military personnel, along with various types of partnerships between government security forces, PSCs, community groupings, and other stakeholders, such as NGOs. This multiplicity of actors, each with different mandates, levels of accountability, and relationships to local populations, makes effective security sector governance in these contexts exceptionally challenging.
Cabo Delgado provides a stark example of a “hybrid security environment”. The province’s vast natural gas and mineral resources have attracted significant foreign investment over the past decade while simultaneously gripped by a violent insurgency, which has displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians and disrupted multiple mining operations. Several formal and informal security providers operate in this environment, including national and international state security forces, community self-defence militias, and a wide range of PSCs, each with varying degrees of coordination, legitimacy, and accountability.
Poor security sector governance by public and private security units has had severe consequences. Instances of abuse have seen companies face legal liabilities and suffer reputational harm, while mining operations have been forced into temporary closure due to protests from local communities. Provision of public security has been drawn away from local citizens towards extractive projects, undermining public safety and fuelling social grievances. Armed groups have effectively exploited these grievances in recruiting and radicalising local people, deepening long-term instability and the viability of mining projects.
A notable case occurred in 2014-2015, when journalists exposed allegations of serious human rights abuses by state security forces and private guards at the Montepuez Ruby Mining site in Cabo Delgado. This led to a London lawsuit filed on behalf of 273 Mozambican claimants. In 2019, Gemfields agreed to a £5.8 million settlement without admitting liability, highlighting the risks of partnering with state security institutions and the need for robust human rights due diligence in high-risk environments.
Similarly, in 2020, a leading multinational energy company signed an MoU with the Mozambican government to establish a Joint Task Force (JTF) for LNG project security, comprised of police and military. Allegations later emerged of serious human rights abuses by government security forces, including sexual violence and mass detentions in which dozens of detainees died. Now under criminal investigation by Mozambique’s Attorney General, the case highlights the risks of legal liability, reputational damage, and community grievances in hybrid security arrangements where corporate and state responsibilities overlap.
Although the conduct of state security forces may be out of the private sector’s control, much can be done to improve security governance within the private security sector and contribute to a better-governed security environment. Mining companies, some of the private security sector’s largest clients, are also becoming increasingly aware of the importance of integrating international human rights and sound governance principles and frameworks into their security requirements.
In this regard, two of the most significant are the Montreux Document on Private Military and Security Companies, which outlines states’ obligations under international law, and the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Providers (ICoCA), which establishes principles of responsible conduct for private actors. Complementing these initiatives are the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights (VPs) – a multi-stakeholder framework designed to promote accountability and align security operations with human rights standards, which an increasing number of leading industry companies have joined as signatories.
Within the United Nations (UN), a draft Convention on Private Military and Security Companies has been developed, and debate around business and human rights have been captured in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP). In addition, the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) 18788 (Management System for Private Security Operations) provides a risk management system anchored in principles of accountability to law and respect for human rights.
Together, these initiatives provide good frameworks for strengthening security sector governance in fragile contexts and should be considered critical to companies that wish to play a positive role in Africa’s long-term stability and prosperity.
Stephen Buchanan-Clarke is a security analyst with several years' experience working in both conflict and post-conflict settings in Africa, primarily on issues of peace and security; transitional justice and reconciliation; democratisation and governance; and preventing and countering violent extremism. He currently serves as head of the Human Security and Climate Change (HSCC) project at Good Governance Africa and is a co-editor of the Extremisms in Africa anthology series.
