We all know that conflict is
costly, but the Global Peace Index (GPI) was one of the first publications that
tried to quantify exactly how expensive it was from a purely economic
standpoint. The figures are astonishing. In 2015, the price of violence worldwide
reached a total of US$14.3 trillion – a huge amount of money, which reiterates
the importance of peace in cold, hard figures.
The GPI ranks the nations
of the world according to their level of peacefulness and is an annual product
of an independent and non-profit think tank the Institute for Economics and
Peace (IEP). It ranks 162 countries, covering 99.6 per cent of the world’s
population. The index gauges global peace using three broad themes: the level
of safety and security in society, the extent of domestic and international
conflict and the degree of militarization. The only statistical measure of its
kind, the GPI allows us to understand what makes societies peaceful and what we
need to do in order to mitigate violence in the future.
To increase awareness of
the GPI and celebrate the 10th year of its existence, IEP has partnered
with Rotary International to announce the new pilot project, the Global Peace
Index Ambassador Program. The goal of this project is to train current and past
Rotary Peace Fellows on GPI methodology and findings, which equips them to give
their own presentations around the world. The pilot is called “10th
for the 10th” to mark the upcoming 10th anniversary of
the GPI in June 2016. Three current Peace Fellows at ICU are involved with this
new opportunity and will be presenting in Tokyo and during their respective
summer AFE experiences. To find out more information about the GPI and the
Ambassador program refer to http://economicsandpeace.org.
10 facts about global peace
1.
The world’s
most peaceful country is Iceland while the least peaceful country is Syria
2.
Globally the
intensity of internal armed conflict has increased dramatically, with the
number of people killed in conflicts rising over 3.5 times from 49,000 in 2010
to 180,000 in 2014.
3.
Due to an
increase in civil unrest and terrorist activity, the Middle East and North
Africa is now the world’s least peaceful region for the first time since the index
began.
4.
Since last
year, 81 countries have become more peaceful, while 78 have deteriorated.
5.
Many countries
in Europe, the world’s most peaceful region, have reached historically high
levels of peace. 15 of the 20 most peaceful countries in the world are in
Europe.
6.
In 2015, the
small African nation of Guinea-Bissau had the largest improvement in peace,
followed by Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, Tajikistan and Benin.
7. Libya was the country
that saw the most severe deterioration in peace in 2015, followed by Ukraine
8. Since 1990,
there has been a slow and steady decrease in measures of global militarization
9. Throughout the
world, peace generally increases with higher levels of urbanization
10. In high-income
countries, there is a strong correlation between the size of annual foreign aid
and militarization indicating that more highly militarized wealthy countries
also tend to provide the largest amounts of development assistance.
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