Chapter Nine: Sub-Saharan Africa

Conflict and instability across parts of sub-Saharan Africa still constitute significant challenges to regional governments. A problem for regional states is that the requirement to deal with current threats risks absorbing the attention of defence establishments, possibly forestalling the defence-reform processes that might make responses to continental security threats more efficient. International involvement in these reform processes is important in terms of funding and organisational support. Meanwhile, the fact that some of the continent’s security challenges are transnational in cause and effect means that international attention remains focused on the continent. This focus is not just in terms of generating diplomatic support and helping to enable conflict and dispute resolution; it involves continuing material assistance to African nations and regional multilateral institutions, as they look to develop domestic capacity to tackle these crises. The move to develop such local capacity has been under way for some time, driven in large part by regional states and organisations such as the African Union (AU). However, defence spending across the region declined in real terms between 2016 and 2017. The risk is that this downward trend could affect more than just the money available for reforms and modernisation plans. Given the draws on government finances required by other sectors, and in light of the greater activism that some states have demonstrated in recent years, it could also affect their broader will and capacity to act.