Global Peace Index (GPI) – 2016

India was ranked 141 on a Global Peace Index (GPI) for year 2016 out of 163 countries, making it a comparatively less peaceful country. India has moved up two positions from 143rd rank in 2015 GPI.

Important Facts

• GPI is regarded as the world’s leading measure of global peacefulness and ranks 163 nations by taking into account some 23 indicators like the domestic and international conflict, safety and security and the degree of militarisation.
• Since 2007, it is published annually by the Sydney (Australia) based Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP). The IEP is an international and independent think tank dedicated to draw the world’s attention towards peace as a positive, achievable, and tangible measure of human well-being and development.
• GPI, 2016 forms the tenth edition of the report and presents the most comprehensive analysis of trends in the past decade. It has also included Palestine in its coverage for the first time in this edition.

Key Findings

Most and least peaceful countries in the world

In the latest report, Iceland is ranked as the most peaceful country in the world followed by Denmark and Austria. Syria has been ranked as the least peaceful country in the world followed by South Sudan, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

India’s Neighbourhood in GPI

Ranking of India’s neighbourhood is as follows: Bhutan (13th), Nepal (78th), Bangladesh (83rd), Sri Lanka (97th), China (120th) and Pakistan (153rd).

Refugees and displaced persons

Refugees and displaced persons now constitute nearly 1% of the world’s population. Their population has doubled to approximately 60 million people in the time period between 2007 and 2016.

Economic impact on global economy

In year 2016, the economic impact of violence on the global economy was around US 13.6 trillion dollars (13.3 % of gross world product).

India

In India, it is estimated that the violence has impacted the economy by $679.80 billion in 2016 which amounts to 9% of India’s GDP, or $525 per person. India has also seen 5% deterioration in peace over the last decade due to the deteriorations in the indicators measuring UN peacekeeping funding and the level of political terror.

Questions and Answers

• What is the overall finding of the report in context with global peace?
• The GPI-2016 has also included Goal 16 of the Sustainable Development Goals. What is that and what the report suggests towards that end?

What is the overall finding of the report in context with global peace?

Decade long deterioration owing to increased terrorism and higher levels of political instability have made the world less peaceful in 2016. There is growing inequality between the most and least peaceful countries in the world. The inequality in global levels continues to widen. The report has found improvements in 81 countries and at the same time deterioration in another 79 countries have outweighed these improvements and made world less peaceful than the last year. However, despite this disturbing trend some of the most peaceful countries have now recorded historically high levels of peace.

Region-wise

Europe has been ranked as the most peaceful region in the world. Compared to last year the largest improvement has been recorded in Central America and the Carribbean. Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has registered the largest decline followed by Sub-Saharan Africa.

South Asia has been adjudged as the second least peaceful region in the world. While the countries like Afghanistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and India deteriorated, the countries like Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Pakistan have registered modest improvements.

The GPI-2016 has also included Goal 16 of the Sustainable Development Goals. What is that and what the report suggests towards that end?

GPI 2016 has also included the audit of the available data to measure Goal 16 of the Sustainable Development Goals (Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels). It has found out that serious investments are needed to realize the goals and has put the onus on the respective states for meeting their targets.