TIV

Trend-Indicator Value

SIPRI's volume index of major-weapon transfers. Each system is priced against a common yardstick of military capability, so deliveries can be compared across suppliers, systems and years. It is not money: “TIV 500” means capability changed hands, not that $500m was paid.

Arms value (US$)

UN Comtrade · HS chapter 93

The customs value of arms imports under Harmonized System chapter 93, in current US dollars. A complementary money measure: it captures small arms and ammunition that TIV excludes, but depends on states' own customs reporting.

EMEI

External Military Engagement Index

ASEO's 0–100 composite of observable engagement: arms dependence, foreign-base presence and defence-cooperation ties. Shown with a sensitivity band reflecting alternative component weightings — it measures engagement, not influence.

HHI

Herfindahl–Hirschman Index

The concentration of a state's arms suppliers, computed over each supplier's share of delivered TIV. It runs from near 0 (many balanced suppliers) to 1 (a single supplier).

DCA

Defence-Cooperation Agreement

A bilateral framework treaty covering defence ties such as training, exercises and defence industry. The panel records the partner, the year signed and whether the agreement is in force.

Arms embargo

A legally binding restriction on arms transfers imposed by the UN Security Council or the Council of the EU. The panel records the target, legal basis, period and scope — several embargoes bind only non-state forces or a sub-national territory, and are coded as such.

Foreign military presence

Recorded foreign military installations and confirmed training missions on African soil, by external actor and year — a count of major, well-documented facilities, not an exhaustive census.

ACLED

Armed Conflict Location & Event Data

ASEO uses ACLED's reported fatalities from organized political violence — battles, explosions, violence against civilians — summed per country-year.

UCDP battle deaths

Uppsala Conflict Data Program

UCDP's best estimate of battle-related deaths in state-based armed conflict — a narrower, conservative series shown alongside ACLED in recipient profiles.

V-Dem regime classification

Regimes of the World

The V-Dem project's measure classing each state-year as a closed autocracy, electoral autocracy, electoral democracy or liberal democracy.

Resource rents

World Bank

Total natural-resource rents as a share of GDP — oil, gas, coal, minerals and forest rents. ASEO charts the 2000–2025 average.

Country-year panel

The data structure behind every chart: one row per African state per year — 54 states × 26 years — onto which all sources are merged.

Supplier bloc

ASEO's grouping of arms suppliers for market-share analysis: Russia, the United States, France, China, EU (others), Eastern Europe, Türkiye, the Gulf states and a residual “others”.

SIPRI

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

The institute whose Arms Transfers Database is the spine of the panel's arms layer: deals, deliveries and TIV values.