How we grade what we publish
Intelligence is only useful if you can see where it came from and how far to trust it. Every record on this platform carries a source, a reliability grade, an analyst confidence level and a time horizon. Where the evidence is thin, we say so rather than smoothing it over.
This is non-cyber, geopolitical threat intelligence covering all 54 African countries: political risk, conflict dynamics, armed-actor assessment, early-warning indicators and maritime security, built from open sources.
- 01
Collection
Named public sources: UN OCHA, ReliefWeb, ACLED, UKMTO, Reuters, national and regional media.
- 02
Verification
Source reliability graded; single-source items marked Reported, never Confirmed.
- 03
Analysis
Structured judgement on actors, intent, capability and escalation signals.
- 04
Production
Key judgement, operational implications, indicators to watch, confidence and sources.
- 05
Validation
Records re-checked as new reporting arrives; uncertain items flagged for analyst review.
Collection disciplines
Open-source collection
Humanitarian and conflict reporting, official statements, court and procurement records, aviation and maritime notices, national press in English, French, Arabic and Somali.
Structured data
Incident, displacement, hazard and food-security datasets are compared and normalised to a consistent Africa geography model; refresh cadence varies by source.
Source evaluation
Institutional reporting, specialist publications, academic research and local or international media are compared for provenance, proximity and limitations.
The six collection layers
Our monitoring desk is organised into six layers. Each ingested record is tagged with the layer it came from, and every article is written independently, in our own words, with the originating publisher or dataset named in the text. The full register of what we collect from — Tier 1 through Tier 3, with reliability grades and collection cadence — is published on the source registry.
Conflict & armed groups
Organised-violence event data and armed-actor reporting, used to track incident tempo and group activity by district.
ACLED · UCDP GED · GDELT
Early warning & emergencies
Disaster, displacement and food-security warnings that precede operational disruption for aid programmes.
GDACS · ReliefWeb · FEWS NET · UN OCHA
GEOINT & situational awareness
Satellite and remote-sensing signals used to corroborate reported burning, flooding and infrastructure damage.
Copernicus · NASA FIRMS · USGS · NASA EONET
Cybersecurity
Threat indicators and advisories relevant to NGO networks, donor systems and field connectivity.
AlienVault OTX · AbuseIPDB · URLhaus · CISA
Strategic & political risk
Governance, sanctions and political-economy signals that shape access, partnerships and compliance exposure.
GDELT · ACLED · OpenSanctions
Verification
Geolocation and imagery checks applied before a contested claim is allowed to influence a rating.
Reverse image search · satellite imagery · open-source research
Evidence status
Status describes what a statement is. Confidence describes how strongly the available evidence supports it.
Confirmed
Supported by authoritative records or multiple credible, independent sources.
Reported
A sourced claim that remains subject to corroboration or material limitations.
Assessed
An analytical judgement derived from available evidence and stated assumptions.
Scenario
A plausible pathway for testing exposure, not a prediction or statement of fact.
Source reliability (A–D)
We use a NATO-style admiralty scale so that a grade means the same thing on every record, whichever analyst wrote it.
| Grade | Meaning | Applied to |
|---|---|---|
| A | Completely reliable | Official record or a source with a long, verified history of accuracy on this subject. |
| B | Usually reliable | Established outlet, agency or field contact with minor historical inconsistencies. |
| C | Fairly reliable | Credible but limited track record, or reporting outside its usual area of coverage. |
| D | Not usually reliable | Partisan or single-channel reporting with no independent corroboration. Used only alongside stronger material, never alone. |
Analyst confidence
Multiple independent sources of A–B reliability, consistent with observed patterns.
Credible reporting with partial corroboration or minor evidentiary gaps.
Single-source or contested reporting. Published with the gap stated explicitly.
Threat levels (UK five-tier scale)
Our country and site threat ratings use the United Kingdom five-tier scale, so a rating reads the same way as the UK national system. The current UK national threat level from international terrorism is SEVERE.
| Threat level | Operational meaning | Posture we advise |
|---|---|---|
| CRITICAL | An attack is highly likely in the near future. | Movement restricted to essential tasks under specific authorisation; relocation and hibernation plans held at immediate readiness. |
| SEVERECurrent UK national status | An attack is highly likely. | Enhanced controls: authorised movement only, venue restrictions, journey management on all road moves, daily reporting. |
| SUBSTANTIAL | An attack is likely. | Standing controls enforced: briefed travellers, tracked movement, no-go areas, defined check-in schedule. |
| MODERATE | An attack is possible, but not likely. | Routine controls with periodic review; heightened attention around political events and known anniversaries. |
| LOW | An attack is highly unlikely. | Baseline duty-of-care measures; monitoring continues so a change is detected rather than discovered. |
Publication gates
Africa-only allowlist. Records outside our geographic and thematic scope are rejected before analysis.
Severity and country attribution are checked against at least one independent record before materially influencing a rating, or the limitation is stated explicitly.
Automated drafting is a starting point, never a publication. Published assessments identify the author, analytical basis and confidence where available.
Every source URL is validated for liveness. Dead links are archived out of the library, not left to rot.
What we do not claim
- We do not present automated summaries as analyst judgement. Machine-drafted text is labelled and reviewed before it carries an assessment.
- We do not model precise casualty figures or attribute responsibility where open sources cannot support it.
- Forecasts are probabilistic judgements with a stated horizon, not predictions of specific events.
Working method
From information to decision
The same eight stages sit behind every assessment, dashboard and briefing published here. They are shown in full, including where each stage goes wrong, because the reasoning is the part worth reading — the conclusions are only as good as the step before them.
- 01
Collect
What is being reported, and by whom?
Public reporting is gathered from named outlets, conflict event data, UN situation reporting, aid-security records and official advice, with the publisher and date kept on every item.
- Output
- A dated set of items, each traceable back to the source that carried it.
- Where it goes wrong
- Collection follows the reporters rather than the events, so quiet districts look safe when they are only unobserved.
- 02
Verify
How much of this can actually be stood up?
Items are checked for independent corroboration, for original versus recycled reporting, and for claims that only one interested party is making.
- Output
- Each item marked confirmed, reported, assessed or scenario — never promoted quietly to fact.
- Where it goes wrong
- Several outlets repeating one original claim is read as corroboration when it is a single source.
- 03
Classify
What kind of event is this, and where does it sit?
Events are given a type, an actor where the evidence supports one, a location and a date, so patterns can be compared rather than felt.
- Output
- Comparable records that can be read by area, actor and event type.
- Where it goes wrong
- Attribution is applied by habit to whichever group is prominent, which distorts the pattern for years.
- 04
Analyse
What has changed, and is the change real?
Patterns are read over time and across areas, distinguishing a genuine shift in behaviour from a shift in reporting, seasonality or access.
- Output
- A judgement on the pattern, with the reasoning and the alternative reading both stated.
- Where it goes wrong
- A reporting artefact is mistaken for a trend, and the assessment moves when the environment has not.
- 05
Assess risk
What could harm people here, and how bad would it be?
Threat is set against vulnerability and exposure, then likelihood and impact are rated on a five-by-five scale and the residual position after controls is stated.
- Output
- Rated risks with mitigation and the risk still carried afterwards.
- Where it goes wrong
- Threat level is confused with risk, so a severe environment is treated as unacceptable regardless of exposure.
- 06
Set indicators
What would tell us the picture is moving?
For each judgement, the observable things that would confirm or overturn it are written down in advance, with the meaning of a change attached.
- Output
- A watchlist that can be checked against open reporting rather than reassessed from scratch.
- Where it goes wrong
- Indicators are chosen because they are easy to count, not because they change a decision.
- 07
Draw the implication
So what should change in how we work?
The judgement is translated into movement, premises, staffing, timing and contingency terms — what to stop, what to condition, what to prepare.
- Output
- Operational implications a manager can accept, amend or reject on the record.
- Where it goes wrong
- Analysis stops at description, leaving the reader to guess what to do differently.
- 08
Communicate and review
Is this understood, and is it still true?
Findings are written plainly, with the confidence, the sources and the date of review shown, and revisited when an indicator moves.
- Output
- A dated product that states its own limits and can be challenged.
- Where it goes wrong
- Confidence is asserted rather than earned, and the product outlives the environment it described.
This is independent, self-funded research from public sources. There is no privileged access, no field network and no organisation-specific advice in it; the framework is published so the reasoning can be checked and reused.