Global Peace Index: Austria Achieves Top Ranking
A global peace index is published every year by the Institute for Economics & Peace. The index evaluates the state of peace around the world and identifies the countries whose peace is highest and lowest. Austria achieved a top result this year. See which countries have the most peaceful climate below!
The Global Peace Index analyses the state of peace around the world. / Picture: © Wikimedia Commons, Shenkonic, CC BY-SA 4.0
Every year, the Global Peace Index is compiled by the international Think Tank Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP). It analyses the state of peace around the world and identifies the most and least peaceful countries, trends in violence and conflict, and calculates the economic impact of violence. It is considered a global measure of world peace.
The index covers 163 different states and territories and thus about 99.7% of the world's population, making it the most comprehensive report on peace worldwide.
In its analysis, it uses 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators from highly respected sources, and measures the state of peace across three domains: the level of Societal Safety and Security, the extent of Ongoing Domestic and International Conflict and the degree of Militarisation.
Using the above criteria, the report came to the sad conclusion that the average level of global peace has declined.
This year's findings show that the average level of global peace has worsened by 0.3% compared to the previous year - in other words, the world has become more insecure. To make matters worse, this is the 11th deterioration in global peacefulness in the last 14 years.
This is due to the fact that 71 countries would have developed negatively in recent years and 2 remained stable. The number of countries that have become more secure in recent years is 90. This suggests that countries that are developing negatively are experiencing a significantly greater deterioration than those that are developing positively in the other direction.
Good ranking for Austria
In the ranking, Austria was able to improve by 2 places last year and is now in 5th place. Untouchable at the top is still Iceland as the most peaceful country in the world. The small island nation has held this position for an unbelievable 14 years and has never had to give up first place. Iceland is followed by New Zealand, Ireland, Denmark and Austria.
Europe dominates peace ranking
Europe thus remains the most peaceful region in the world and is home to seven of the ten most peaceful countries. The only exceptions are New Zealand, Singapore and Japan.
For the fifth year in a row, Afghanistan is the worst performer, followed by Yemen, Syria, Russia and South Sudan. All of these countries have been among the ten least peaceful countries for the last three years.
Impact of the Ukraine conflict
Unsurprisingly, two of the five countries with the largest deteriorations in peacefulness were Russia and Ukraine, they were joined by Guinea, Burkina Faso and Haiti. All of these deteriorations were due to ongoing conflict.
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine led to a large rise in the number of conflict deaths, as well as sharp deteriorations in indicators such as refugees and IDPs, political instability and political terror.
The conflict in Ukraine had immediate repercussions outside the Russia and Eurasia region, especially for the neighbouring countries relations indicator, which recorded a sharp deterioration.