By The Institute for Economics and Peace
The tenth edition of the Global Peace Index (GPI) finds that many countries are at record high levels of peacefulness, while the bottom 20 countries have progressively become much less peaceful. This creates increased levels of inequality in global peace, and the gap between the most-peaceful and least-peaceful countries continues to widen.
Explore the data here.
The world continues to spend enormous amounts on reducing and containing violence, and little on building peace. The economic impact of violence was $13.6 trillion (PPP) in 2015 which is the equivalent to 11 times the size of global foreign direct investment. Since last year commitments to peacekeeping are improving, but global investment in peacebuilding and peacekeeping is less than 2% of the economic impact of armed conflict.
The ten year deterioration in peace has been largely driven by intensifying conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa region. Terrorism is at an all-time high, battle deaths from conflict are at a 25 year high, and the number of refugees and displaced people are at a level not seen in 60 years.
In the 12 months since the last Global Peace Index, increased conflict, terrorism and the refugee crisis suggests a less peaceful world. However, despite the increasingly unequal gap between peaceful and less peaceful nations, there are positive trends where the data tells a different story.
Download the 2016 Global Peace Index 2016 Report (PDF) here.Φ
The Institute for Economics and Peace is the world’s leading think tank dedicated to developing metrics to analyse peace and to quantify its economic value. It does this by developing global and national indices, calculating the economic cost of violence, analysing country level risk and understanding positive peace. The Institute aims to create a paradigm shift in the way the world thinks about peace. It uses data driven research to show that peace is a positive, tangible and achievable measure of human well-being and development.