Research environment · Country risk
Country Risk Laboratory
Eleven countries assessed in the same structure, so the reasoning can be compared rather than taken on trust: the operating environment as it stands, the threats with intent and capability, the vulnerabilities that let harm succeed, and the operational considerations that follow.
Analyst assessment from public sources, written for practitioners. Threat levels describe the general environment for a civilian organisation; they are not a substitute for an organisation's own assessment of its own exposure.
Horn of Africa
Somalia
An armed opposition retaining the capability to mount complex and explosive attacks in urban centres, contested control on inter-city roads, and a security transition that shifts responsibility faster than it builds capacity.
Open assessmentEthiopia
A country where the security picture is regional rather than national: Addis Ababa functions normally while armed conflict, communication restrictions and access denial persist in parts of Amhara, Oromia and the Tigray periphery.
Open assessmentSudan
Active war between organised military forces, with urban ground fighting, air and artillery use, collapsed services, and humanitarian access determined by front lines and by permissions from the parties.
Open assessmentEritrea
Low reported criminal and armed threat to foreign civilians, but a tightly controlled operating environment where the principal risks are administrative, legal and informational rather than violent.
Open assessmentDjibouti
A comparatively stable base and logistics hub whose risk profile is shaped by its neighbours, by maritime threat in the Bab al-Mandab approaches, and by extreme heat rather than by armed violence ashore.
Open assessmentThreat levels use UK terminology.
East Africa
South Sudan
Localised armed violence, subnational and communal conflict, and one of the world's most consistently documented environments for violence against aid workers, compounded by seasonal roads and thin medical capability.
Open assessmentKenya
A stable regional hub with two distinct problems: a persistent cross-border threat in the north-east and coastal hinterland, and urban crime and protest dynamics in Nairobi and Mombasa.
Open assessmentUganda
Generally permissive for civilian operations, with concentrated risk in the western border districts near the DRC, political and public-order friction around elections, and criminality in Kampala.
Open assessmentTanzania
A largely permissive environment where crime, road safety and regulatory compliance dominate the risk picture, with a localised watch item in the south-east near the Mozambique border.
Open assessmentRwanda
Low crime and a highly ordered operating environment, with the material risks sitting in regional spillover from eastern DRC, in political and information sensitivity, and in road safety.
Open assessmentBurundi
Constrained operating conditions with political sensitivity, localised armed incidents and regional tension with Rwanda and eastern DRC, alongside routine crime and weak road and medical infrastructure.
Open assessmentThreat levels use UK terminology.