Our Africa Risk Map rates every country Critical, High, Moderate or Low. The most common misreading of the map is that Critical means an incident is imminent or certain. It does not. This guide explains what each rating means, how we reach it and what management action each level should trigger.
What a rating actually represents
A rating is a judgement about the combination of four things: the threat present in the environment, the exposure a typical operating organisation has to it, the likely impact if it materialises, and the operating conditions — response capacity, access, medical infrastructure, rule of law — that determine how bad a bad day becomes.
Critical
Threat is severe and sustained, exposure is difficult to reduce below a high level, impact is potentially fatal or programme-ending, and operating conditions offer limited mitigation. Critical does not mean an incident is guaranteed. It means the environment requires significant, continuous management action and senior accountability for the decision to operate.
- Board or executive-level acceptance of residual risk, documented.
- Full-time security management presence, not a collateral duty.
- Formal movement authorisation, medevac arrangements and crisis team on call.
- Review cycle measured in weeks.
High
Serious threats are present and realistic for organisations like yours, but exposure can be materially reduced through disciplined controls. Expect dedicated security management, mandatory training, journey management and a quarterly review cycle.
Moderate
Threats exist and are largely manageable with standard controls, competent local staff and clear procedures. The risk here is complacency: most serious incidents involving international organisations occur in Moderate environments, because that is where preparation lapses.
Low
The environment does not demand specialised security management. Standard travel safety, road safety and health precautions apply — road traffic accidents remain the leading cause of harm to staff in Low-rated countries.
How to use the ratings well
- Treat the national rating as a starting point; sub-national variation is often wider than the difference between two countries.
- Match authorisation levels to ratings in policy, so the map drives decisions automatically.
- Re-read the rating rationale, not only the colour — the reasoning is where the operational guidance lives.
- Challenge us: if your ground truth contradicts a rating, we want the input, and we publish rating changes with the evidence.
Ratings are analytic judgements under uncertainty, made to a consistent method and revised when evidence changes. Used properly, they replace argument about how dangerous a place feels with a shared basis for deciding what to do about it.