Cyber, Political Resilience Rankings Shuffle in Latest FM Global Resilience Index

FM Global released Wednesday its 2018 Resilience Index. While overall resilience rankings have remained largely unchanged from 2017, cyber and political resilience rankings have shifted.

The Global Resilience Index is an annual ranking of 130 countries and regions according to 12 economic, risk and supply chain factors, which include supply chain visibility, supplier quality and rate of urbanization, in addition to the aforementioned cyber and political risk.

Overall Rankings See Little Change

First, here’s a quick look at how this year’s overall rankings compare with those from last year. Switzerland again takes the top spot, while Haiti ranks last.

Source: FM Global Resilience Index data

Source: FM Global Resilience Index data

Cyber and Political Risk

Although France ranked ninth in the overall risk resilience index, the country’s cyber resilience ranking dropped 33 places, to 101^st in 2018 from 68^th in 2017, as a result of weakening civil liberties and increased internet penetration.

In contrast, Taiwan’s cyber resilience ranking moved up 57 places, to 50^th from 107^th last year. FM Global attributes this primarily to increased civil liberties.

Benin, Mongolia, Senegal, Namibia and Madagascar have the highest cyber risk resilience scores, whereas Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Azerbaijan have the lowest scores.

As for political risk resilience, Singapore, New Zealand, Luxembourg, Iceland and Switzerland occupy the top spots, and Pakistan, Turkey, Ukraine, Nigeria and Ethiopia are in the bottom.

Unsurprisingly, the political resilience rankings of all three U.S. regions (East, Central and West) fell over the past year, moving to 46^th from 31^st.

The political resilience score, which FM Global calculates using World Bank data, is one of the main drivers under the economic category. Looking at the overall economic resilience scores, Qatar, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Norway and Ireland rank top. Ethiopia, Thailand, Pakistan, Haiti and Benin have the lowest rankings.

Supply Chain Resilience

Corruption control, infrastructure quality, local supplier quality and supply chain visibility are the four factors that make up the supply chain resilience score. This year, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria and Japan have the highest supply chain scores, while Haiti, Chad, Venezuela, Zimbabwe and Cameroon have the lowest.

Switzerland boasts the highest score for local supplier quality. The U.S. also ranks high (ninth) for this factor, as well as for supply chain visibility.

Quick Facts

Here are some more interesting quick facts from the 2018 index:

• The central region of the U.S. is ranked first in overall risk resilience, followed by the Czech Republic, Spain, Germany and Poland
• Australia’s cyber resilience score fell by nine places to 75^th this year, following a 3% increase in internet penetration
• Countries with high risk of natural hazards include China, Japan, Mexico, the Philippines and the U.S.
• Venezuela, Ecuador, Tajikistan, Guatemala and Sri Lanka have the lowest risk resilience scores

 Check out FM Global’s 2018 Resilience Index here.