Global Defense Expenditure Rises To $1.78 Trillion, Ghana Spending $218M

Global spending on defense hit $1.78 trillion in 2018, up 2.6% on the previous year, according to data from the World Bank and data visualisation wizards at HowMuch, who mapped out a fascinating infographic, showing all the countries with sizeable military budget.

Ghana however spent about $218 Million on military expenditure in 2018 with the big spenders on the continent being Algeria- $9.5 Billion; Morocco- $3.7 Billion; South Africa- $3.64 Billion; Egypt- $3.1 Billion and Nigeria- $2.04 Billion.

The lowest expenditures came from Liberia, The Gambia and Cape Verde, spending $15.8 M, $11.5 M and $10.8 M, respectively, according to the visuals in the release copied to the Ghana News Agency.

The United States tops the countries with most expenditure on military hardware, spending some $ 649 Billion in 2018.

Four others, China ($250 Billion), Saudi Arabia ($67.6 Billion), India ($66.5 Billion) and France ($63.8 Billion) together contribute more than half of all global military spending.

It said the United States is projected to spend even more for defense in 2020 "than at any point since World War II, except for a handful of years at the height of the Iraq War."

It said Haiti remained the lowest global country with military spending of only $79,700, in 2018.

The infographic shows that 71 of the 146 countries in the dataset spent more than $1 Billion on their military budgets. Norway’s armed personnel, for example, totals 23,000. Yet, Norway spent over $7 billion on its military last year.

India becomes the country with the largest standing armed forces personnel of 3,031,000 troops, followed by China- 2,695,000 troops and Russia boasts of 1,454,000 troops, compared to 1,359,000 for the US.

The graph scores zero for Haiti and Seychelles with no armed forces but 1,000 for The Gambia and Cape Verde and Luxemburg recording 2,000 troops for being countries with smallest armed forces personnel globally.

Ghana is pegged between 25,000-49,000 standing armed forces, with Egypt topping the African armed forces personnel in the one million class, followed by Algeria, Morocco, Sudan, Nigeria and Angola categorised in the 500,000-1,000,000 range.

The defense industry is one of the largest in the world. Nearly every country sets aside a large portion of their federal budget for military expenditures, which can have a major impact on their economies.

Using data from the World Bank, which provides data and analysis on a variety of topics for countries around the world, it compiled the numbers for armed forces personnel and military expenditures for countries across the globe. The graphic doesn’t include countries that haven’t made these available to The World Bank. It’s clear that defense is a top priority for many countries around the world.

Source: GNA