Spending on defence in multiple countries 2021

There is missing data for these search results - see table for more information

Chart help

Chart Help
These charts allow you to search the GSW data by different countries, years & different sectors - 7 sectors related to the MDGs, as well as ‘less desirable’ government spending on debt servicing and defence spending. There is also the option to choose ‘total of government spending’ which gives the total government budget for the year. The charts generated from the search will also generate a corresponding table of data (see tab ‘table’), as well as the downloadable country data in excel files (see ‘Country data and sources’ tab). The chart allows a display of multiple countries and multiple sectors, in order to compare spending across sectors within & across countries. However, when too many countries/sectors are chosen, the graphs become difficult to read. Therefore, we suggest keeping the selection to roughly a maximum of 5 countries and 7 sectors to view the chart. If you have further queries about how to use this database please email: gsw@development-finance.org

Table help

Understanding the table

The table below shows the basic data for the search. Where ‘no data’ is available (i.e. due to a lack of data in government documents) this is displayed as ‘no data’. All amounts are shown in millions unless units are total or GDP. To download the full data-sets for the countries in this search, see the ‘download all data’ tab. In large table displays the sector names are shortened for readability in the table, see notes below. If you have further queries about how to use this database please email: gsw@development-finance.org

Spending on defence in multiple countries 2021
Country	Defence
Angola Planned	6.77
Benin Planned	3.25
Botswana Planned	8.24
Burkina Faso Planned	9.59
Burundi Planned	8.57
Cameroon Planned	5.27
Cape Verde Planned	1.34
Central African Republic Planned	9.3
Chad Planned	14.72
Comoros Planned	no data
Congo Planned	11.4
Cote d'Ivoire Planned	4.66
Djibouti Planned	no data
DRC Planned	4.29
Eswatini Planned	5.04
Ethiopia Planned	3.86
Ghana Planned	1.55
Guinea Planned	8.99
Kenya Planned	4.68
Lesotho Planned	2.18
Liberia Planned	0.82
Madagascar Planned	4.35
Malawi Planned	3.29
Mali Planned	13.78
Mauritania Planned	12.16
Mozambique Planned	5.49
Namibia Planned	7.88
Niger Planned	4.78
Nigeria Planned	7.11
Rwanda Planned	5.2
Sao Tome and Principe Planned	no data
Senegal Planned	6.99
Sierra Leone Planned	2.75
Somalia Planned	16.65
South Africa Planned	2.73
South Sudan Planned	13.77
Tanzania Planned	5.16
The Gambia Planned	2.56
Togo Planned	9.87
Uganda Planned	9.42
Zambia Planned	3.63
Zimbabwe Planned	4.92

Missing data

Some data missing. In most sectors countries have some data missing. Education, health and agriculture have information available for roughly 70% of countries. Environment and agriculture have marginally less information available, 43% and 51% respectively. WASH and gender are far harder to gather information on with only 31 countries n WASH and 13 in gender having sector information available. Data on budget plans is much more accessible than on actual spending, so it’s more likely that we will have information for planned spend.

Sector specific information about missing data

Agriculture

Nearly 90% of countries have planned data available for the agriculture sector. This means that data availability is good, with agriculture coming just behind education and health in terms of amount of information available. This tends to be due to clear ministries/sub ministries/agencies dealing with agriculture, and therefore clear budget lines for agriculture.

Debt

Data on debt servicing is available for 64 countries in the database, and is sourced separately from the rest of GSW data (see data source page link and explanation at the end of this section for more information). The data is only available for planned 2013, and is not broken down recurrent/capital or government/donor (given it is all government funded and recurrent). It is drawn from IMF LIC-Debt Sustainability Framework and MIC-Debt Sustainability Framework annexes, as well as other budget tables, in IMF staff country reports for 2014 and 2015.

Defence

Data on defence spending is available for 44 GSW countries and is sourced separately from the rest of GSW data (see data source page link and explanation at the end of this section for more information). Data for this was taken from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), www.sipri.org/research/armaments/milex/milex_database. This is only available for 2012 and 2013 planned, as this is the latest available information in SIPRI – as soon as 2014 data is available this will be updated.

Education (All)

Information on education, along with health, is by far the most readily available sector data, all countries have some information on education. This reflects the fact that education is generally covered by clear separate education ministries and/or agencies. Sometimes there are several education ministries split into primary or basic, secondary and tertiary, but it is easy to aggregate these.

Primary Education

Primary education is much less easy to find information on than total education spending. This is because many governments do not break down their total budget for education into spending according to different levels – given the MDG goal is on primary education GSW tries to do this where possible but we can only find a total of around 35% of all data available.

Environment

Sector data for the environment is less readily available than some sectors, with only 65% countries with data available. Because it is often split across multiple ministries and agencies it can be hard to identify ‘environment’ spending and programmes and aggregate this data. In some countries, data are less readily available because the spending is only part of some ministries or agencies’ budgets, and they do not publish data in enough detail to allow its compilation according to MDG breakdowns.

Gender

Gender data is incredibly difficult to find and track, with only around one-third of countries with data on gender. The difficulty in finding data reflects the fact that gender-related spending is often subsumed into broader social welfare ministries, with insufficient disaggregation to identify specific spending on women.

Health

Information on health, along with education, is by far the most readily available sector data, with over 90% of countries publishing sector level data on health. This reflects the fact that health is generally covered by clear separate health ministries and/or agencies, and even when there are separate agencies dealing with health, such as national AIDS commissions, which are separate from health ministries, this is easy to find and aggregate.

Social Protection

Much like environmental spending, sector data on social protection is less readily available than some sectors with only 65% of countries have information available. However, it is still better than the worst performing sectors. Because it is often split across multiple ministries and agencies it can be hard to identify ‘social protection’ spending and aggregate this data. For 11 countries (Bhutan, Comoros, Djibouti, Guyana, Kiribati, Lesotho, Niger, Nigeria, Tanzania, Tonga, and Vanuatu) it has not been possible to compile social protection data.

WASH

The WASH sector is the second worst performing sector in terms of transparency and availability of accessible data to compile overall spending with only around half of all countries having data on WASH as a sector. Across WASH the problem arises from spending being hidden as part of a ministry or agency whose remit goes beyond water, sanitation or hygiene; and in multiple different agencies for rural and urban services. Often sanitation sits in health or other areas, while water sits in Ministries combined with energy. It is incredibly difficult to find information on actual spending for WASH. GSW is working with others, including Water Aid to help to improve this information.

Country data & sources

You can download this data in raw format here:
Definitions & Sources

For an overview of data definitions and sources, please click here. If you would like detailed information of sources and methodological notes for a specific country, select a country on the map or in the search box above, and download the expenditure file.

For a general overview of expenditure data definitions and sources, please click here. If you would like detailed information of sources and methodological notes for each country, then please download the particular country expenditure file, available in the country data page, which details this in full.