The political risk map

It has been one of the interesting topics discussed in the March issue of GISMagazine, known in our environment as Geoinformatics. It is a geopolitical map, which reflects criteria that become conditioning factors for political, social and economic stability, updated in its 17th edition for 2010.

The result is work by Aon Risk Services, an Oxford Analytica partner company, based on consultation with more than 1000 academics, institutions and people related to tracking indicators such as:

• Danger of political instability due to war, terrorism, coups d'état.
• Interference by other countries in domestic policy decisions.
• Dependence on remittances or fiscal deficit out of control.
• Problems of the regulatory framework.
• Problems of environmental sustainability.

The ranking of each of these criteria is not detailed, but the results are shown on a thematic map of countries by colors ranging from the low risk category in gray to very high in red. Nothing surprising in North America, Chile and Western Europe, where everything looks very friendly, contrary to the case of Latin America and the Middle East.

It is possible that some criteria will be questionable, by the spectacle of those who benefit from the final result to establish international policies or alerts to foreign investment; But it is not surprising that with the lines adopted by Colombia, this year it has better conditions, Venezuela reaches its peak in red, and the risk of El Salvador and Honduras increases due to the recent instability of the latter.

Here you can read the full article and here you can see the map in format PDF. It requires registering an email, but inside you can consult other types of information.

By the way, I recommend you give more than an eye to the magazine, which among some interesting topics is:

• What is FME for 2010?
• Use of GIS for fire control
• There is a super smoked interview with the Director of Business Development of 1Spatial, on the quality and management of spatial data.
• The Belgian road sign inventory project.
• The cadastre and climate change.
• And, of the most succulent, a very well worked article on the Geomarketing.