Benin
5. Presence of Allied Armed Forces in Fragile Environments
This criterion relates to the fifth criterion of the EU Common Position which aims at preventing arms exports that would adversely affect the national security of any EU member state, ally, or friendly country. This, however, remains a highly sensitive and essentially political decision, that the BICC database cannot display. Therefore, the database confines itself to providing information on the presence of EU/NATO armed forces or of UN peacekeeping forces in the recipient country or in neighbouring countries and combines it with data on state fragility and corruption in the defence sector. If such troops are present and the level of state fragility and/or corruption in the defence sector are very high, the country is classified as ‘critical’, as there is a risk that transferred arms might end up in the hands of groups that pose a security threat to the allied armed forces. If allied troops are present and the level of state fragility and/or defence sector corruption is high, the country is classified as ‘possibly critical’.
Indicators
| Presence of EU/NATO armed forces or of UN peacekeeping forces in the country or in neighbouring countries | No data |
| Constellations of State Fragility | - |
| Government Defence Anti-Corruption Index | - |
Sources
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IISS Military Balance
The International Institute for Strategies Studies publishes in The Military Balance data on foreign armed forces within the country.
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Constellations of State Fragility
The Constellations of State Fragility data of the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) provides an empirical typology of states from a fragility perspective. It uses global data from 2005-2015 to identify typical constellations of state fragility. State fragility is defined as deficiencies in one or more of three core functions of the state. These functions include state authority, state capacity and state legitimacy. The project identifies recurring patterns of state fragility and allows to determine which fragility constellations describe which countries best.
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Government Defence Anti-Corruption Index
The Government Defence Anti-Corruption Index (GI) of Transparency International assesses the existence, effectiveness and enforcement of institutional and informal controls to manage the risk of corruption in defence and security institutions. The experts draw together evidence from a wide variety of sources and interviewees across 77 indicators to provide a detailed assessment of the integrity of national defence institutions, and awarded a score for each country from A to F.