This Regulation establishes an instrument (the ‘Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace’) which provides, for the period from 2014 to 2020, direct support for the Union's external policies by increasing the efficiency and coherence of the Union's actions in the areas of crisis response, conflict prevention, peace-building and crisis preparedness, and in addressing global and trans-regional threats.

The Union shall undertake development cooperation measures, as well as financial, economic and technical cooperation measures, with third countries, regional and international organisations and other State and civil society actors under the conditions laid down in this Regulation.

F1Where Union assistance is provided to the security sector actors, this may also include military actors under exceptional circumstances as provided for in Article 3a in the context of a wider security sector reform process or capacity building in support of development and security for development in third countries, in line with the overarching objective of achieving sustainable development.

For the purposes of this Regulation, the term ‘civil society actors’ includes non-governmental organisations, organisations representing indigenous peoples, local citizens' groups and traders' associations, cooperatives, trade unions, organisations representing economic and social interests, local organisations (including networks) involved in decentralised regional cooperation and integration, consumer organisations, women's and youth organisations, teaching, cultural, research and scientific organisations, universities, churches and religious associations and communities, the media and any non-governmental associations and private and public foundations likely to contribute to the development or to the external dimension of internal policies. Other bodies or actors not listed in this paragraph may be financed when necessary in order to achieve the objectives of this Regulation.