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Global Piece Index results for 2007, 2008, 2009

“Now in its third year the causes of peace are becoming apparent and the net economic benefit to humanity is substantial. Peace does have an economic value apart from the very real humanitarian values associated with it. Research has calculated the impact of lost peace to the world economy over a period of ten years is US$48 trillion.

Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, chairman of Anglo American and chairman of the Global UN Compact is one of the GPI’s high profile supporters:

“This year’s index clearly shows that there are links between economic prosperity and peace. The business community can and does benefit significantly from non violent environments but perhaps business must now consider how sound, transparent and ethical business practices can play a larger role in bringing out about stability and peace.”

New Zealand is ranked as the country most at peace followed by Denmark and Norway. Small, stable and democratic countries are consistently ranked highest; 14 of the top 20 countries are western or central European democracies. All five Scandinavian countries are in the top ten of this year’s GPI.

The US has risen six places from last year to 83rd place with a fall in the indicator registering the potential for terrorist acts. A significant negative for US peace scores is the fact that the country still jails a higher proportion of its population than any other country in the index.

For the third year running, the country ranked least at peace is Iraq with Afghanistan and Somalia following behind. Madagascar is the country that has fallen the most (30 places) amid mounting political instability and violent demonstrations. Bosnia Herzegovina is the biggest riser, up 23 places from 73rd position last year.

This year the Index has been expanded to rank 144 countries and now encompasses almost 99% of the world’s population. The Index is constructed from 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators of external and internal measures of peace including levels of democracy and transparency, education and material wellbeing. It has won the backing of an influential and distinguished group of supporters including Nobel Laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Professor Joseph Stiglitz and former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, as well as from the world of business including Sir Mark Moody-Stuart and Sir Richard Branson.

Steve Killelea said:

“People need to understand the structure and attitudes that create peace and start to build them in to their societies. Peace lies at the centre of being able to manage the many and varied challenges facing humanity, simply because peace creates the optimum environment in which the other activities that contribute to human growth can take place.”

Other key findings:

Three of the world’s major military–diplomatic powers continue to register relatively low ranks, with China at 74, the US at 83 and Russia at 136
The G8 apart from Russia (136), UK (35) and US (83) do well with Japan at 7th, Canada at 8th and Germany at joint 16th.
Recent members of the EU fare well with Slovenia and Czech Republic leading the way (9th and 11th places respectively)
Angola has had an impressive rise to 100th place from but Zimbabwe has dropped 10 places to be in the bottom 10 of the index.
*”Defining Peace Industries and Calculating the Potential Size of a Peace Gross World Product by Country and by Economic Sector”, Jurgen Brauer and John Tepper Marlin, April 2009

Notes to Editors

The Global Peace Index was founded by Steve Killelea, an Australian international technology entrepreneur and philanthropist. It forms part of the Institute for Economics and Peace, a new global think tank dedicated to the research and education of the relationship between economics, business and peace..
The GPI is calculated by the Economist Intelligence Unit and its worldwide network of country analysts on behalf of the Institute for Economics and Peace
An international panel of experts in the study of peace advises on the identification and weighting of indicators in the GPI.

For more information please visit www.visionofhumanity.org