Analysts’ perceptions of Africa improved during the first half of 2018, results from Euromoney’s Country Risk Survey show. This was mainly due to recovering commodity prices, which in turn lifted economic indicators, as well as improving capital access.
Even though the continent is one of the riskiest regions in the world due to geopolitics and trade wars, it has bounced back this year; in fact, Africa and Latin America are the only two regions that have been on a rising trend since 2010.
Euromoney Country Risk collates the views of more than 400 economists and other experts, evaluating the risks faced by investors across a range of political, economic and structural criteria. Scores for these indicators are added to values for capital access and debt, and are aggregated each quarter to provide total risk scores and rankings for 186 countries.
In sub-Saharan Africa, average growth is projected to rise from 2.8% in 2017 to 3.4% this year, according to the IMF, accelerating in two thirds of countries.
Rising trend
Botswana, on a rising trend this decade, has been the region’s safest country since 2014, lying in 49th place in the global rankings.