The biggest year-to-year increase in military spending came from Mali, Chad and Mauritania, although the three countries account for less than 8% of the region’s military spending. To catch up with the Sahel countries, Algeria has also increased its military spending by 2.3% to $10.654 billion, maintaining its share of regional spending at 50.1%. In contrast, Egypt, a country that used to be a regional leader in terms of military spending in the 1980s and the mid-1990s, saw its 2016 military spending go down by 2.2% to reach at $5.3 billion, corresponding to 25.2% of a total regional spending. Military spending in North America saw its first annual increase since 2010, while spending in Western Europe grew for the second consecutive year. Except for North Africa, spending also continued to grow in Asia and Oceania, Central and Eastern Europe but fell in Central America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, South America and sub-Saharan Africa.

Source: The North Africa Journal April 28, 2017 11:03 UTC