UN Hardship Classification

How hardship classifications are assessed

A hardship letter combines several aspects of life at a duty station. It is not a crime score, a measure of poverty or a verdict on the whole country. For an applicant, the useful question is which difficulties you would face and how the employer helps you manage them.

What ICSC actually measures

The official questionnaire asks for concrete evidence, not just whether a place feels difficult:

• Healthcare: Can staff reach emergency treatment? The questionnaire checks hospital services, 24-hour access, medicines and medical evacuation arrangements.
• Safety and security: Reported incidents and threats affecting staff, including armed attacks, robbery and unrest. UN security specialists contribute to this assessment.
• Housing: The accommodation international staff actually use: basic facilities, building condition, heating or cooling, and access to maintenance.
• Local services: Whether water and electricity work reliably, how often outages occur, and whether food, household essentials and sanitation services are available.
• Isolation: Hours to reach the capital or an airport, flights per week and their reliability, plus access to communication and social activities.
• Climate and environment: Long-term temperature, humidity and rainfall data, alongside conditions such as flooding, dust storms, pollution and high altitude.

For example, the form distinguishes daily, weekly and monthly interruptions to water or electricity. It records airport journey times in hours and flight availability per week. These are assessment inputs—not rules saying that a certain number of outages automatically makes a station B or E.

ICSC initially scores the factors. A working group of ICSC, employer and staff representatives reviews the result, with specialist medical and security input; the ICSC Chair makes the final classification. The public consolidated list gives the letter and dates, without a station-by-station score breakdown.

Why a country cannot be reduced to one letter

In the October 2026 list, Luanda in Angola is B, Benguela C and Dundo D. In Algeria, Algiers is A while Tindouf is E. Those differences show why you should check the exact station rather than use a capital city’s rating for an entire country.

A B rating alone cannot tell you “the hospital is inadequate” or “there are frequent power cuts.” To understand a particular offer, ask the recruiting office for its current duty-station briefing: emergency-care access, backup utilities, approved housing, movement rules and arrangements for dependants.