International SOS, a leading Health & Security Services Company, has reinstated Cape Verde as one of the safest tourism destinations in the world, awarding the West African island country the rating of ‘Insignificant’ Security Risk, the best possible rating out of 5 — the order goes as follows: ‘Insignificant’, ‘Low’, ‘Medium’, ‘High’, ‘Extreme’.
This makes Cape Verde the only African nation to receive this rating and — perhaps more impressive — one of just 10 countries in the entire world to receive such a distinction.
The other countries ranked alongside Cape Verde are: Finland, Norway, Denmark, Eslovenia, Croatia, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Greenland and Iceland. Some small islands and archipelagos have also been attributed the same rating, though they are not sovereign states.
Also read: Cape Verde approves the new micro-entrepreneurship promotion programme
In Africa, only a handful of countries have received a ‘Low’ Security Risk rating – the second-best rating in International SOS’ scale: These are: Morocco, Senegal, Gambia, Ghana, Benin, São Tomé and Príncipe, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, Rwanda and Mauritius.
On the opposite end of the scale, receivers of the ‘Extreme’ Security Risk rating in the African continent are: Mali, Libya, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Somalia and a portion of the northeastern territory of Nigeria, which inlcude the states of Yobe, Borno and Adamawa.
