The World became less peaceful in 2016
The Global Peace Index 2016 was released by international think-tank, Institute of Economics and Peace. The report brought to light a blunt and growing inequality in global levels of peacefulness. According to the report, peace in 2016 diminished at a faster rate than in the previous year. In the last decade alone, India has deteriorated in peace by 5%.
The Institute of Economics and Peace
IEP is an international independent think-tank devoted to shifting the world's focus to peace as a positive, achievable and tangible measure of human well-being and progress. Headquartered in Sydney, Australia and holding branches in New York, Mexico City and Oxford, technology entrepreneur Steve Killelea chairs it. It achieves it's goals by creating frameworks that define peacefulness and providing metrics for it's measurement.
The Global Peace Index
The GPI is an initiative of calculating global peacefulness taken by the Institute of Economics and Peace. It attempts to determine the relative positions of the nations' and the regions' with regards to peacefulness. It takes into account on-going domestic and international conflict, safety and security in society, and degree of militarisation in 163 countries and territories on the basis of 23 indicators.
Indicators
23 indicators are used by the Steve Killelea-founded Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) to mark countries for their peacefulness. Incidents of violent crime, level of militarisation, weapon imports amongst other indicators are considered in preparing the Global Peace Index (GPI).
Less peaceful world
Results of the Global Peace Index of 2016 indicate an increase in violence globally. Deaths from conflict, terrorist attacks, and displacement of people are the three factors that broke global records and affected levels of peace in turn. The top five peaceful countries are Iceland, Denmark, Austria, New Zealand and Portugal. The least peaceful are Syria followed by South Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.
Historically less harmonious countries
Increased terrorism and higher levels of political instability were the chief factors for the global deterioration of peace. Over the last decade, from 2007-2016, the number of refugees and displaced persons has doubled to 60 million people - nearly 1% of the world's population. The global economic impact of violence reached an astounding $13.6 trillion, which for the sake of representation equals $1,876 individually.
Middle East and North African (MENA) nations
Majority of the global deterioration comes from the developments in the Middle East and North African (MENA) nations. When MENA peace stats were taken out of the index over the last decade, it improved the rest of the world's average peace levels.
India at 141st rank in GPI 2016
Out of the 163 countries studied, India was ranked 141st in the GPI report, standing 5th out of the 7 countries in the South-Asia region. Violence impacted India's economy by $679.80 billion, upto $525 per person. According to Killelia, levels of peace in India have diminished because of the increase in deaths by organised conflicts and a decline in security personnel per 100,000 people.
