• Institutional development
• Institution building
• Parliamentary development
• Electoral systems & reforms
• Political parties
• Informal institutions
• Media

Institutional development

The SAIIA has three roles:

• Public education - informing the public through its meetings, study groups, conferences, schools programmes, publications, media and television work, and its research internship trainee scheme. The Institute's International Affairs Research Internship programme equips young black South Africans for careers in diplomacy, business or academia.
• Specialist research - feeding into public and government policy debates, and also providing consultancy-type research to the SAIIA's corporate and diplomatic members. The Institute is South Africa's premier expert resource on international issues.
• International networking - linking with international organisations and governments through the staging of joint research projects and publications, and participation in international and local events.

The SAIIA is funded through a mix of corporate and private membership (it has six branches countrywide); the Jan Smuts Memorial Trust; and project support.

The SAIIA's research library, which is one of three UN depositories in South Africa, exchanges publications with some 200 organisations world-wide. The SAIIA also stages a number of international conferences annually.

The Web site provides detailed information on fellowships and internships as well as on recent publications, particularly books and reports: SAIIA Reports (short conference reports, policy-issue overviews) and SAIIA Intelligence Updates (for corporate and diplomatic subscribers only). The SAIIA also publishes a South African Yearbook of International Affairs, sub-Saharan Africa's only journal dedicated to international affairs, and The South African Journal of International Affairs. "Dr Opinion" is a forum in which current events in International Affairs are explained.

Links of interest are provided, in the fields of Politics and Economics, Media and Journals, South Africa General, South Africa Think Tanks, Strategic and Security Studies, and International Organisations.