Threatened by terrorism and faced with populist policies, the world is living an era where political risk is reoccurring in emerging economies. The dilemma as reported by the Aon Political risk and Terrorism and political violence map affects investors, corporations and governments on an international level. However, Morocco remains a safe bet for it is ranked as a medium risk country. As opposed to many countries in the Middle East and North Africa region, Morocco remains a medium risk country according to the 2017 Aon's risk maps. Based on two major maps, namely the political risk and the terrorism and political violence, this report helps investors from all around the world to have a concrete look at the challenges surrounding several emerging economies. For the Kingdom, results are quite reassuring as it is featured among the average risk economies in the political risk map next to Saudi Arabia, South Africa and India. It is also in the same position when it comes to the terrorism and political violence card along with strong economies like the US, Germany, France and Iran. The Middle-East and North Africa region, however, continues to have the riskiest economies in the world because of the ongoing conflicts, and terrorism attacks. According to the British report, MENA has the highest risk indicators with elevated levels of political violence and several politically fragile countries such as Tunisia and Libya. In other words, severe and high risk countries are mostly located in Africa and the Middle East. Syria, Irak, and Sudan are all stated as challenging areas for investments due to diverse political issues. ISIS and Populist politics The Aon's risk maps shed light on the emerging policies and terrorist threats. Accordingly, businesses around the world are affected by the political changes that occurred in big developed economies like the USA. Authors of the report claim that the elections of populist leaders like Donald Trump, who has initiated investment restrictions, impacts negatively emerging markets and economies. Consequently, the limitation of trade, fiscal deficits and the restrictions applied on immigration multiplies the political risks linked to certain nations and threatens peaceful relations. The rise of populist policies is not the only reason behind political risks. The Aon report indicates that : «the Islamic state and its affiliated groups are a highly unpredictable source of local, regional and indeed global threat». The terrorism and political violence map reports that ISIS creates a huge risk for investors and economies worldwide resulting in the increase of the global value of all risks ratings to the highest it has been since 2013. A few statistics have been provided by the Aon's maps 20th edition showing that the number of terrorist attacks increased worldwide by 14% in 2016. Western countries, particularly, saw the greatest percentage increase in the frequency of terrorist violence in 2016. Attacks with vehicles became the single form of attacks in 2017 making of the world a more violent place. For the record, the Aon is a multinational corporation headquartered in London which provides risk management data. Partnered with RiskAdvisory and Roubini Global Economics, the political risk and the terrorism and political violence maps study the risk-related data in the world bringing valuable results about emerging economies.
