The Civil Engineering Contractor August 2018 | Page 41

BUSINESS INTEL
Mauritius is ranked the most peaceful country in Africa, and
it is in the top 20 most peaceful countries in the world.
CEC August 2018 - 39
than five million people internally displaced and violence
is expected to continue to escalate ahead of elections
scheduled for December 2018, despite the presence of 15
000 UN peacekeepers. nn
and militarisation, but those were offset by deteriorations
in violent demonstrations, refugees and IDPs, and
political terror.”
Of the 14 West African nations, the overall scores of only
two — Niger and Nigeria — deteriorated last year. There
were substantial sub-regional improvements in the domain
of safety and security, including Liberia by 8%, the Gambia
by 5.9%, and Ghana by 5.5%.
The most notable West African exceptions were Togo
and Cameroon. In Togo, which had the region’s second-
largest deterioration, tens of thousands of people took
to the streets to demand the resignation of President
Faure Gnassingbé, whose family have ruled the country
for 50 years. Cameroon, with the region’s third-largest
deterioration, has seen Anglophone secessionists launch a
number of attacks on government security forces during
the year.
In Eastern Africa, there seems little sign of an end to the
four-year-old civil war in South Sudan, and the emergence
of a new faction in the country under President Salva
Kiir’s former military chief, Paul Malong. This is likely
to prolong the breakdown in peacefulness of the world’s
youngest country.
Ethiopia fell six places to 139 after Amhara protesters
targeted Tigrayan business interests and foreign investors,
leading to deteriorations in its scores for violent
demonstrations and political terror. Neighbouring
Kenya, in contrast, gained three places as a result of
a reduced number of attacks by militants allied to
Somalia’s al-Shabaab movement and fewer refugees
coming over its north-eastern border.
The largest deterioration in the region was recorded
by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC),
where President Joseph Kabila’s refusal to step down
at the end of his second and final term at the end of
2016 has led to increasing violence, particularly in the
country’s eastern provinces. The DRC now has more
Construction of boreholes as a source of safe drinking water in Rwanda.