By Lamin Cham
The New York City–based multinational financial and business news website, Business Insider Africa, has ranked The Gambia as the fourth safest country for travellers in Africa.
The magazine ranked The Gambia below only Mauritius, Botswana and Namibia and ahead of Sierra Leone, Madagascar, Ghana, Zambia, Senegal and Liberia who constitute the top ten safest countries in Africa.
According to Business Insider, Africa draws growing international investment and tourism, and therefore assessing travel safety has become a key consideration for business executives, investors, and travellers.
Despite on-going challenges such as political unrest and localised crime, several countries on the continent, it reported, continue to offer relatively stable and secure environments.
In determining how safe countries are and in compiling the list, experts glean data from the World Population Review’s Global Peace Index (GPI) and Safest Countries Index which provide metrics for evaluating political and civilian safety.
GPI is an annual report that measures and ranks the peacefulness of 163 countries to determine the world’s most peaceful countries. The GPI is published annually by the Institute for Economics and Peace, which measures 23 indicators of peace, which are grouped into three categories: On-going international and domestic conflict, societal safety and security, and militarisation.
Example indicators include the number and duration of internal conflicts, relationships with neighbouring countries, political instability, the level of violent crimes, and the level of perceived criminality in society. The indicators’ values are then merged to create a single unified GPI value for each country.
The composite index measuring the peacefulness of countries is made up of 23 quantitative and qualitative indicators each weighted on a scale of 1-5. The lower the score the more peaceful the country. The Gambia was scored at 1.855 / 5.
Reacting to this news, Police Spokesman Modou Musa Sisawo said this positive development did not come as a surprise.”It is another confirmation of the genuine transformation of the Gambia police into an efficient entity in combating crime in the new democratic dispensation since 2016. You will recall that there have been other recent international accolades and recognition of quality service received by the Gambia Police Force. As an institution, we welcome this latest global recognition of our country as the safest in Africa,” the police spokesman said.
