by Sokhu Sibiya
Every two years, South Africa hosts the Africa Aerospace and Defence (AAD) exhibition, bringing the world’s defence industry to its doorstep. But this year, the most significant story may not be the hardware on display. It is Africa’s growing ambition to move from being a customer of global defence technology to becoming a producer of it.
Across the continent, governments face increasingly complex security challenges: porous borders, vast and difficult-to-monitor maritime territories, insurgencies and the need to support regional peacekeeping operations. Buying sophisticated equipment can provide an immediate capability, but without the engineers, technicians, manufacturers and support networks needed to operate that equipment over decades, procurement can create dependence rather than sovereignty.
This is where African-built defence technology enters the conversation
South Africa’s Milkor is showcasing the kind of capability that challenges the assumption that advanced defence technology must be imported. Its Milkor 380 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), developed in South Africa, is a multi-role, long-endurance platform designed for applications including border surveillance, maritime patrol and tactical operations.
The company argues that African defence forces need to consider the ecosystem surrounding a technology as carefully as the technology itself. “Given the limited budgets countries have available, it is important to combine the acquisition of modern equipment with extended support services,” says Daniel du Plessis, Vice President, Milkor Africa. That means training, maintenance, repairs and the transfer of skills and knowledge should form part of the conversation from the beginning—not become an afterthought once the equipment has been delivered.
For Africa, this is an important shift in thinking. Defence expenditure can represent more than a line item in a military budget. It can also become a mechanism for developing advanced manufacturing, engineering skills, technology companies and local supply chains.
AAD 2026 provides a useful backdrop to that argument. International defence companies and delegations from countries including India, China, Brazil, Türkiye and the UAE are competing for relationships with African markets. Global competition gives African governments access to technologies and potential partnerships. But it also creates a question about the terms of those relationships.
Who owns the knowledge? Where is the equipment manufactured? Who maintains it? Where are the engineers trained? And when the contract ends, does the capability remain?
Milkor’s position is that African defence forces should look more closely at the capabilities already being developed on the continent. The answer is not necessarily to choose African technology simply because it is African. Rather, it is to evaluate African-built systems alongside international alternatives and examine what each partnership contributes to long-term capability.
That becomes even more important as artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, drones and cyber technologies reshape modern warfare. Du Plessis emphasises that Africa cannot afford to treat these technologies as products that arrive fully formed from elsewhere and that the continent needs people who understand them, companies capable of adapting them to African conditions and institutions able to regulate their use.
The Milkor 380 is designed with that African operating environment in mind, while its potential applications extend beyond national borders into regional peacekeeping. Its development also demonstrates that African defence companies can participate in increasingly sophisticated global technology partnerships. That is a more mature definition of defence sovereignty. It does not mean Africa must build everything alone. It means international partnerships should strengthen African capability rather than permanently substitute for it.
AAD 2026 therefore presents an opportunity to look beyond the spectacle of aircraft, drones and military hardware. The bigger story is industrial.