Guidance

Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF) 2015 to 2024

An overview of the CSSF, including 2022 to 2023 highlights, and its achievements before the UK Integrated Security Fund (ISF) replaced it.

About the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF)

The Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF) enabled the UK government to transform how it addressed the greatest threats to UK national security from overseas, especially conflict, transnational threats and hostile state activity.

The CSSF invested over £830 million in financial year 2022 to 2023 through integrated programmes across 12 government departments and agencies. Operating in over 90 countries and territories, the CSSF combined Official Development Assistance (ODA) and non-ODA  funding sources.

Examples of CSSF activity include:

  • assisting to prevent Russian disinformation following their illegal invasion of Ukraine
  • supporting our allies to increase their resilience to cyber-attacks
  • helping Turkish lawmakers to change firearms legislation, which led to a decrease in the number of converted blank-firing weapons on UK streets

On 1 April 2024 the UK Integrated Security Fund replaced the CSSF.

CSSF programmes 2022 to 2023

Programmes from 2022 to 2023 financial year included:

Ukraine

The Ukraine Cyber Programme provided expertise, software and hardware to enable Ukraine to detect, respond to and deter Russian aggression. It supported incident responses to destructive and espionage malware such as the supply chain attack against critical infrastructure providers.

It also provided software and hardware packages and protection from distributed denial of service (DDS) attacks to ensure Ukrainian people could access vital public information. The programme also provided forensic capabilities to enable Ukrainian analysts to understand system compromises, where they came from and how to restrict future attacks.

Counter Daesh Communications Cell (CDCC)

The CSSF Counter Daesh Communications Cell (CDCC) helped to weaken Daesh propaganda by highlighting the group’s failures. CDCC reached over 40 million people in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and West Africa, and tens of millions of satellite television viewers across the Middle East.

The number of people engaging with the Coalition’s Arabic language website and social media channels has grown by over 300% since 2020, with video views doubling. Meanwhile a reduction in residual support for Daesh has been recorded in communities across Iraq and North East Syria.

Georgia

The CSSF increased support to Georgia. New investment is supporting the National Security Council of Georgia to implement its new national cyber security strategy. Funding is also being used to help identify and respond to threats from those seeking to undermine Georgian and wider European security.

CSSF funding enabled Georgia’s first public private partnership on cyber security. This brought together cyber security professionals from across government and private sector, to cooperate on shared challenges and establish a formal cooperation mechanism.

CSSF annual reports

These include information on the CSSF’s governance, approach to risk, conflict sensitivity and gender:

See also the:

On 1 April 2024 the UK Integrated Security Fund (UKISF) replaced the CSSF. Find out more about the UKISF.

Published 28 March 2024