According to the annual edition of the ** Global Peace Index (GPI) **, the world became a more peaceful place in 2017. Can you think of who can top the ranking?
The eleventh edition of the Global Peace Index (GPI), published by the international research center Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), yields a more than encouraging conclusion: Global peace levels generally improved in 2017, despite marked deterioration in the United States and political turmoil in Europe. The main driver of this improvement was the low levels of state terrorism (extrajudicial killings and torture) and the prior withdrawal of military forces from almost all countries that provided military assistance in Afghanistan.
The GPI is the world's leading measure of international peace. But what exactly does it measure? Three things: ongoing national and international conflicts, safety and security in society, and the degree of militarization in 163 countries and territories.
Syria ranks as the world's least peaceful country for the fifth consecutive year; and Afghanistan, Iraq, South Sudan and Yemen round out the bottom five spots. Talking about USA , the impact of political polarization due to the 2016 elections makes them drop eleven positions and star in the steepest decline in the list.
The region of the world with the greatest improvement is South America. Europe, for its part, retained its position as the most peaceful region (eight of the top ten positions in the ranking are held by European countries), despite record levels of terrorism in several countries. The Middle East and North Africa region remains the most violent.
Steve Killelea, founder and CEO of IEP, concluded: "Although this year's rebound is comforting, the world remains gripped by conflict in the Middle East, political turmoil in the United States, waves of refugees and terrorism in Europe. When this is combined with the increasing level of inequality of peace, where less peaceful countries are moving away from more peaceful ones, in the resulting scenario there is no guarantee that peace will increase." Here the complete ranking.
Increases and decreases in the "peace" index from 2016 to 2017
*Report published on January 3, 2018 and updated on January 10, 2018