US to spend up to $550 mln on African rapid response forces

The United States will announce on Wednesday plans to spend $110 million a year over the next three to five years to help African nations develop peacekeeping forces that can be rapidly deployed to head off militant threats and other crises, an Obama administration official told Reuters.

President Barack Obama is expected to unveil the program during the third day of a summit of African heads of state in Washington, along with another U.S. plan to spend an initial $65 million to bolster security institutions in Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Tunisia, the official said.

The United States would partner with Senegal, Ghana, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda to develop rapid response forces. Those forces would be ready to deploy as part of United Nations' or African Union missions, the official said.

"We've seen over time increasingly capable African peacekeepers who are deploying to address crises across the continent," the official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.


---- reuters