Hey Congress, the Coast Guard needs a FAO corps for Africa!

The Coast Guard needs a FAO program (or an Africa FAO program at least).  Almost every American Embassy in Africa (and more importantly African nation) could benefit from having a permanent Coast Guard billet.  Most African countries need to learn how to build a Coast Guard not a navy, but I am pretty sure that in all of Africa there is only one permanent Coast Guard billet at an embassy.   That is all.

Links:
http://africacenter.org/2009/12/navies-versus-coast-guards-defining-the-roles-of-african-maritime-security-forces/

A Great Resource for Insight by ACSS

Please click on the title to check out the link.

The Africa Center for Strategic Studies puts out some great studies and there is some useful information on their website.  Of note I would like to highlight the a superb article by August Vogel which examines whether Africa needs developed Navies or Coast Guards...personally, I am hard-pressed to find a valid arguement for the overwhelming majority of african nations to have navies at this point in time.  However, the development of robust national and regional coast guards would precisely answer the current maritime security shortcomings.

http://africacenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/AfricaBrief_2.pdf