The State Of Global Peace
The 2019 edition of the Global Peace Index released by Vision of Humanity has found that global peacefulness has improved for the first time in five years. however, that improvement was very slight and the world continues to be less peaceful than a decade ago. The following infographic shows the state of global peace worldwide with Iceland ranked the most peaceful country, followed by New Zealand, Portugal and Austria.
Global Peace Index 2019
Global peacefulness improves for the first time in five years, but the world continues to be less peaceful than a decade ago.
The average level of global peacefulness improved very slightly last year on the 2019 Global Peace Index (GPI). This was the first time that the index improved in the last five years. The average country score improved by -0.09 per cent, with 86 countries improving and 76 recording deteriorations.
Iceland remains the most peaceful country in the world, a position it has held since 2008. It is joined at the top of the index by New Zealand, Austria, Portugal, and Denmark. Bhutan has recorded the largest improvement of any country in the top 20, rising 43 places in the last 12 years.
Afghanistan is now the least peaceful country in the world, replacing Syria, which is now the second least peaceful. South Sudan, Yemen, and Iraq comprise the remaining five least peaceful countries. This is the first year since the inception of the index that Yemen has been ranked amongst the five least peaceful countries.
Four of the nine regions in the world improved in peacefulness in 2019: Russia and Eurasia, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Europe maintained its position as the most peaceful region in the world, which it has held for every year of the GPI. MENA remained the least peaceful region for the fifth year in a row, although it did become more peaceful last year.
While most of Russia and Eurasia remains less peaceful than the global average, it showed the largest regional improvement. Central America and the Caribbean had the largest regional deterioration.
Despite the improvement this year, the world remains considerably less peaceful now than a decade ago, with the average level of peacefulness deteriorating by 3.78 per cent since 2008. Global peacefulness has only improved for three of the last ten years. A wide range of factors drove the fall in peacefulness over the past decade including increased terrorist activity, the intensification of conflicts in the Middle East, rising regional tensions in Eastern Europe and northeast Asia, increasing numbers of refugees, and heightened political tensions in Europe and the US.
This deterioration was partially offset by improvements in many of the measures of the Militarisation domain of the GPI. There has been a consistent reduction in military expenditure as a percentage of GDP for the majority of countries, as well as a fall in the armed services personnel rate for most countries in the world.
ENDS
Article Published Courtesy of Statista https://www.statista.com/chart/18339/countries-ranked-by-peace-level/
Global Peace Index Sourced from:
http://visionofhumanity.org/indexes/global-peace-index/
