In 2022, the EU-SA Gateways for Peace project invited experts and stakeholders to examine the key actors and points of contestation in Lesotho and Eswatini. These deliberations concluded that there was a need for a new social contract in these countries and for dialogues, which could rethink the co-existence of monarchical and democratic systems to create more peaceful polities. Following the elections in Lesotho and no practical change in Eswatini, the call for new social contracts and compacts, which will ensure a stable consolidation of a fragile democracy in the case of Lesotho and a stable transition to a sustainable democracy in Eswatini, remains pertinent.
This again brought together several experts, as well as EU representatives, to an on-site event, which took place in Pretoria, South Africa, in April 2023, where they discussed the actual and future desired development in the region.