African states receive a variety of security assistance from a wide range of donor nations and external partners. To be effective, security assistance must be sustainable, address identified shortcomings, occur within the institutional capacity of the security sector, and support national interests and identified outcomes. Countries in crisis or emerging from crisis (e.g., Mali and Somalia) are often magnets for diverse and prodigious donor support, but also the states least capable institutionally of managing the assistance. In a complex donor environment, the donors’ interests and priorities, combined with inadequate donor coordination and noncomplementary donor objectives, can challenge the creation of a capable and sustainably resourced security sector.
This program seeks to:
- Assist African states in developing a strategy to prioritize, leverage, and manage the range of security assistance offers from external partners
- Design and implement strategies to improve the linkages between institutional capacity and donor assistance, particularly within the sphere of equipment donation, life-cycle management, and acquisition strategy
- Demonstrate improved leadership and better coordination among African institutions with bilateral and multilateral partners to leverage donor security assistance