Attaining and sustaining peace across Africa is critically dependent on the ability of Africa’s security sector to respond in a timely manner, get troops and supplies to areas of greatest need, establish reliable communications infrastructure, relocate vulnerable and affected groups, and sustain efforts aimed at ensuring stability and democratic values. This is the realm of logistics. A review of recent peace support operations across the continent (like those in the Central African Republic, Mali, or Somalia) or responses to humanitarian crises (like famine in the Sahel or floods in Southern Africa) suggests that Africa needs to pay much closer attention to developing viable logistics capacity and laying the foundation for effective collaboration in this area.
The Africa Logistics Forum has four overarching objectives:
- Seek to critically evaluate the key challenges facing African countries and institutions, and outline creative approaches to overcome them
- Examine domestic and external resources necessary to strengthen logistics capacity at both national and regional levels
- Map out key elements of enduring strategies that enables African countries and regional institutions to work with external partners to establish and sustain necessary structures
- Explore mechanisms to bolster logistics management capacity at the strategic level, focusing on continental institutions (like the African Union) and very senior level security sector professionals in national governments