Spotlight on Africa

AFRICA ENDEAVOR 2016 Leaders’ Forum focuses on improved strategic communications and C4 among and between partner nations and regional and international organizations

Leaders from more than 40 African and coalition partner nations, along with USAFRICOM staff, will meet this week in Madagascar to advance civil, military and technical interoperability, cyber collaboration and multinational joint task force operations. Since its formation in 2006, through the annual AFRICA ENDEAVOR exercises, AFRICOM has trained more than 1,800 communications specialists and military planners in C4 techniques, tactics and procedures. The exercise’s primary objective is to increase the command, control, communications and computer (C4) support to the African Union and African Standby Forces involved in humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, and peacekeeping missions.

Lt. Gen. Robert Ferrell, the US Army’s Chief Information Officer, stated at last year’s closing ceremony for AFRICA ENDEAVOR, “By talking together, face to face, about current systems and capabilities, we also can develop shared architecture and infrastructure that will allow better integration of our systems when it’s time for mission execution.” I could not agree more.

XTAR is helping to improve the changing national security environment in Africa by providing flexible satellite solutions that enable a common interoperable architecture. Fully compatible with WGS, XTAR’s commercially available X-band satellites permit African militaries to communicate with DOD and African coalition partners alike. Furthermore, since many of the African countries do not have the resources to commit to satcom ownership or long term leases, XTAR supports their mission by offering agile, highly customizable leasing solutions to meet their mission needs. AFRICA ENDEAVOR encourages sharing best practices, and commercial providers like XTAR are creating some of the best and most efficient ways to enhance communications between our security cooperation partners.

Hosted last year by Botswana’s Defence Force (BDF), Brig. Kenneth Kethibogile, director of communications for the BDF said at AE 2015, “Challenges that are affecting Africa are broad in nature and vary from one region to another… There is no one country that has all the resources to handle these challenges by itself, hence the need to think and prepare to operate in a multinational and multiagency environment.” XTAR has gained expertise in meeting the varying requirements of the continent. We specialize in supporting government users who are disadvantaged by remote and harsh environments. African countries need better technology to meet all of their national security missions. We have begun to show them the strong advantages of commercial X-band satcom.