Interview with : Cécile Caplin, International SOS Regional Security Manager

How have your customers' requests changed since the start of the Covid 19 crisis?

Cécile Caplin - With the Covid crisis has come the lot of travel restrictions and the complexity of all personal movement and travel but also professional. Overall, since March last year, we have entered an initial phase of border closure and finally the impossibility of travelling. All the countries had a fairly immediate reaction of closure, of very severe restrictions, and eventually this began to ease gradually: travel resumed even if it did not return to the level it had before; but today the particularity is that it is much more complex to organise, they take much longer because there are many more elements to take into account. So, what's special about travel in general, but Africa in particular, is that you always come to us beforehand to find out if the country is open, if you can travel there and if you need to travel there, and to find out if there are any restrictions in place. It's important to know if the country is accessible if you're a French national or if you're coming from France. Some countries impose more restrictions on nationality than on country of originSo that's one of the important details that always complicates things. The other issue is the reason for travel: some countries try to shoot really on overriding reasons or with professional credentials. And then, of course, there are the questions about the PCR test 48 hours or 72 hours. This is the basis for being able to travel today, which is what our customers want.

What were the needs of expatriate employees?

Cécile Caplin - The curfews and restrictions on assembly were not necessarily very well received in Africa, there was unrest and also xenophobic feeling towards Westerners and people of Asian origin. There were movements of tensions and difficulties. At that time, at the start of the crisis, our customers asked us a lot about this, and they also asked us a lot about the issue of repatriation of their expatriate employees. Overall, the advice was to repatriate non-essential personnel and their families. Except that in many countries the borders were closed, which complicated a lot of things. In some countries, you had to go through the diplomatic authorities to make an official request. Nevertheless, we did several mass repatriations from Africa: we did it for Angola, and we also did it for Egypt, where we also repatriated families, children, dogs, cats...

customers are relatively well prepared, continue to travel, continue to expatriate

Do you feel that companies working in the Africa region are better prepared today for health risks?

Cécile Caplin - We feel that customers are relatively well prepared, continue to travel, continue to expatriate. As proof of this, we receive a fair number of requests for consulting services. In Gabon, Kenya, Togo and Côte d'Ivoire, for example, we conduct audits of expatriate residences. In fact, we can see that companies are still present on the ground and expatriates are still being sent. The pandemic has not prevented companies from continuing their normal activities. However, we can see that it has reinforced the need for companies to carry out security audits for expatriate residences. The Covid crisis has also accelerated a phenomenon that we were beginning to sense and on which we were preparing to take action: Our business is to assist travellers and expatriates, but our clients are now asking for a much more global vision that takes all employees into account. Of course, we can't evacuate nationals from a country, but companies are willing to assist and support their local employees, and to give them the benefit of measures ranging from health and safety training to truly personalised support: training/information, testing campaigns, setting up protocols to compensate for the lack of social protection and to dissuade employees from coming to work when they have Covid. By changing certain postures, employers help to protect their business and all their employees. We have seen this approach adopted by several customers who have this more global vision. Companies have generally listened to their employees.

Interview by L.S.