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Foreword

Foreword

Jo Holliday

Global Head of Crisis Management
jo.holliday@wtwco.com

I am delighted to share our 2024 Annual Review which provides insights from our regional experts and features key topics and trends revealed by our in-house risk advisory and crisis support service, Alert:24. The review includes perspectives on the kidnap, extortion, accident and health, active assailant, maritime piracy, terrorism and political violence risks that are likely to characterise the year ahead.As we look back over 2023, a year dominated by conflict in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine, as well as regional crises in North Africa and political unrest in Latin America, it has certainly been a challenging year for many of our clients to navigate. Throughout 2023, particularly in the latter stages of the year, there was a feeling that global geopolitical events had the very real ability to escalate even further and, as a result, deteriorate the security situation in several countries and their surrounding regions. Some notable themes from this years' report include the impact of people movements, the increase in active assailant incidents in Europe and the resurgence of state and technology supported terrorism. These areas are looked at by the team in this report and will be closely monitored by us all, I'm sure. Whilst the Annual Review takes an analytical and statistical look back at 2023, we have also looked ahead in 2024. 2024 has been dubbed the 'year of elections' and the team have looked at how this may impact our clients' ability to operate around the globe, whether through geopolitical consequences, civil conflict or economic instability. The summer of 2024 also sees the world of sport focused on Paris for the XXXIII Olympic Games and the team have included their own focus on the games in this report. There is also a section on the terrorism landscape 2024, with some insight into the evolving and diverse threats that could dominate terrorism activities in the year ahead.Please do not hesitate to reach out to the team if you would like to delve deeper into any of the topics or regions covered by the report. We are very proud to have had the opportunity to work with clients through 2023 and thank you for your continued support.