2017 MEASURING PEACE IN A COMPLEX WORLD Quantifying Peace and its Benefits The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank dedicated to shifting the world’s focus to peace as a positive, achievable, and tangible measure of human well-being and progress. IEP achieves its goals by developing new conceptual frameworks to define peacefulness; providing metrics for measuring peace; and uncovering the relationships between business, peace and prosperity as well as promoting a better understanding of the cultural, economic and political factors that create peace. IEP is headquartered in Sydney, with offices in New York, The Hague, Mexico City, Brussels and Harare. It works with a wide range of partners internationally and collaborates with intergovernmental organisations on measuring and communicating the economic value of peace.It works with a wide range of partners internationally and collaborates with intergovernmental organisations on measuring and communicating the economic value of peace. For more information visit www.economicsandpeace.org CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2 1 RESULTS AND FINDINGS 7 Highlights 8 2017 Global Peace Index rankings 10 Regional overview 14 Risers and fallers 21 GPI domain & indicator annual changes 26 2 TRENDS IN PEACE 29 Highlights 30 Ten-year trends 32 Trends in Militarisation 39 Trends in UN Peacekeeping 48 3 ECONOMIC IMPACT OF VIOLENCE 53 Highlights 54 Results 58 Impact of conflict on long-run economic growth 62 The cost-effectiveness of peacebuilding 70 4 POSITIVE PEACE 79 Introduction 80 Understanding Positive Peace 82 Peace transitions 86 Trends in Positive Peace in Europe: the rise of populism 94 5 APPENDICES 113 Appendix A: GPI methodology 114 Appendix B: GPI indicator sources, definitions, & scoring criteria 118 Appendix C: The characteristics of peace 127 Appendix D: Economic cost of violence by country 130 Appendix E: 2017 GPI domain scores 132 Appendix F: Positive Peace Index indicators 135 End notes 136 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This is the eleventh edition of the Global Peace Index (GPI), which ranks 163 independent states and territories according to their level of peacefulness. Produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), the GPI is the world’s leading measure of global peacefulness. This report presents the most comprehensive data-driven analysis to-date on trends in peace, its economic value, and how to develop peaceful societies. The GPI covers 99.7 per cent of the world’s population, been dragged down largely because of a deterioration in two using 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators from highly indicators: level of perceived criminality in society and the respected sources and measures the state of peace using three intensity of organised internal conflict. The latter measure thematic domains: the level of Societal Safety and Security; the has deteriorated because of the increased levels of political extent of Ongoing Domestic and International Conflict; and the polarisation within the US political system. The US also has degree of Militarisation. experienced the fourth largest drop in Positive Peace globally, after Syria, Greece and Hungary in the ten years to 2015. In addition to presenting the findings from the 2017 GPI, this year’s report includes analysis of the Positive Peace factors that Europe remains the most peaceful region in the world, with are most important for transitioning to higher levels of peace eight of the ten most peaceful countries coming from this and how deteriorations in Positive Peace are linked to the rise region. However, while 23 of the 36 countries improved, of populism in Europe. The report also assesses the trends the average peace score did not change notably, due to the in peacekeeping and militarisation, including a cost/benefit substantial deterioration in Turkey, the impact of the terrorist analysis highlighting the positive economic benefits from early attacks in Brussels, Nice, and Paris, and deteriorating relations peacebuilding interventions. between Russia and its Nordic neighbours. The results of the 2017 GPI find that the global level of MENA is the least peaceful region in the world for the fifth peace has slightly improved this year by 0.28 per cent, with 93 successive year. Saudi Arabia, followed by Libya, recorded the countries improving, while 68 countries deteriorated. largest deteriorations in the region. Saudi Arabia fell because Iceland remains the most peaceful country in the world, a of its involvement in the Syrian and Yemen conflicts and position it has held since 2008. It is joined at the top of the increased terrorist activity, mainly conducted by ISIL and its index by New Zealand, Portugal, Austria, and Denmark, all of affiliates, while the fall for Libya was due to its increased level which were ranked highly in last year’s GPI. There was also very of internal conflict. little change at the bottom of the index. Syria remains the least The indicator with the largest improvement was number, peaceful country in the world, preceded by Afghanistan, Iraq, duration and role in external conflicts. This was mainly due to South Sudan, and Yemen. many countries winding down their involvement in Iraq and Six of the nine regions in the world improved. South America Afghanistan. While in most cases the withdrawal of troops registered the largest improvement, overtaking Central occurred some years ago, the indicator is lagging in order to America and the Caribbean as the fourth most peaceful region. capture the lingering effect of conflict. The indicator measuring South America’s score benefited from improvements across all political terror also significantly improved in all regions except three domains, with particularly strong gains in Societal Safety sub-Saharan Africa and the MENA. There were also general and Security. reductions in the number of homicides per 100,000 people and the level of violent crime. The largest regional deteriorations in score occurred in North America, followed by sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle Of the three GPI domains, both Militarisation and Safety and East and North Africa (MENA). The score for North America Security improved. However, there was a deterioration in the deteriorated entirely as a result of the US, which more than Ongoing Conflict domain, owing to an increase in the intensity offset a mild improvement in Canada. The US’s score has of conflicts in the MENA region. 2 The ten-year trend in peacefulness finds that global peacefulness has deteriorated by 2.14 per cent since 2008, with 52 per cent of GPI countries recording a deterioration, while 48 per cent improved. The global level of peacefulness deteriorated rapidly after the global financial crisis, however, since 2010, the movements have been within a small range, resulting in this year’s levels of peacefulness returning to approximately the same level as in 2010. 12.6% Contrary to this year’s trend, the domain that deteriorated the most over the ten-year period was Safety and Security, with 61 per cent of countries recording a deterioration. The major falls in this domain occurred in the sub-Saharan Africa region due to increases in terrorism impact and political instability. Conversely, the domain with the largest improvement was The report’s Positive Peace research tackles a central issue facing policymakers – understanding what causes societies to Militarisation where 60 per cent of countries became less transition from one state of peace to another. The research militarised over the past decade. Finally, it is important to shows that over the last decade, the defining characteristic of note the global trend in peacefulness has been dominated by countries that have transitioned to more or less peaceful states developments in the MENA region. The violence and conflict has been their performance on Positive Peace. has been so intense that if the region were excluded from the rest of the world, the average levels of peacefulness would not The analysis finds that different factors become more important have changed significantly over the last decade. at differing stages. In low-peace environments, the factors that matter the most are related to Well-Functioning Government, The heightened media attention on conflict in the Middle Low Levels of Corruption, Acceptance of the Rights of Others East, refugee flows and terrorism in Europe has meant several and Good Relations with Neighbours. In these settings, security positive trends have not been as widely covered. Two of the and rule of law are the most important factors within the more positive trends from the last decade are decreases in Well-Functioning Government Pillar. For countries at the mid- the for 67 per cent of the countries covered homicide rate level of peace, Free Flow of Information and Sound Business and improvements in the Political Terror Scale which Environment rise in importance. In order for countries to rank measures state sponsored violence, such as extra-judicial at the top of the GPI they must score well on all eight Pillars of killings and torture, where 68 countries improved, compared Positive Peace, underlying the systemic nature of Positive Peace. to 46 that deteriorated. Finally, the Pillar related to Low Levels of Corruption is The economic impact of violence on the global economy strongly significant across all stages of peacefulness, showing in 2016 was $14.3 trillion in purchasing power parity (PPP) that regardless of the peace of a country, it is an important terms. This figure is equivalent to 12.6 per cent of the world’s transformational factor for both development and peace. This economic activity (gross world product), or $1,953 for every is important to emphasise, as corruption is the least measured person, and is three per cent lower than in 2015. The reduction Pillar of Peace in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was mainly due to decreases in the number of people killed targets - only three of the 169 SDG targets relate to corruption.