Africa urged to devise military spending approaches to curb crisis

African countries should devise new funding priorities and approaches to help in resourcing of the continent's militaries to help deal with rising crisis and crimes such as extremism, according to a report released on Saturday.

The report by Think Security Africa, an independent policy-oriented think tank, says devising new funding priorities will ensure that African militaries retain and develop the capacity to guarantee national defence.

"If the rise in military operations in Africa continues, alongside rising budgetary uncertainties, militaries and donors will likely have to change funding priorities to enhance the sustainability of operations," said Adunola Abiola, founder of Think Security Africa.

"In addition to this, militaries will have to cooperate more closely on the administrative and operational levels, and defence contractors will likely have to amend the way they market and supply," Abiola added.

The report focuses on military finance and steps needed to prevent a serious readiness crisis within African militaries.

The study, Ready to Serve: Financing African Militaries and Securing Readiness, charts nine key changes in Africa's national defence environment, and explains how this is translating into new budgetary priorities, as well as finance and administrative challenges.

The report highlights the fact that 18 percent of African militaries are impacted by existential crises, and 35 percent are undertaking operations beyond normal peacetime activity.

"All this is occurring against a backdrop of increased budgetary uncertainty, mainly precipitated by the sharp drop in commodity prices," the study says.

Amid rapidly rising regional threats, the readiness and deployability of African militaries is essential to guarantee national defence, it says.

However, the report notes that the absence of fully functioning military institutions does not mean that a country is unable to deploy a sizeable continent of high quality forces to secure national defence objectives.

"It may mean that sustaining the deployment of a high quality national defence capability may be more challenging for a number of reasons," it says.

For example, being the inability to rotate forces at the appropriate frequency could also serve to raise the national defence burden for neigbouring countries.

There are over 50 countries in Africa and they all have different military ambitions. But the trend is clear. All African governments save less than ten increased their military budgets over the last 10 years.

The study urges African militaries to consider joint procurement at certain levels, and joint advocacy in order to remove debilitating administrative blocks. Endit