The Global Peace Index (GPI) report published yesterday by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) puts the Sultanate of Oman on fourth position in the Arab region and 41st among the 153 world countries.
The GPI is the world’s leading measure of global peacefulness. It gauges ongoing domestic and international conflict, safety and security in society and militarisation in 153 countries by taking into account 23 separate indicators.
Iceland, now recovering from the 2009 global economic meltdown and largely bereft of internal and external strife, regained first place in the 2011 GPI report. Iceland is followed by New Zealand, Japan, Denmark and the Czech Republic. Small, stable democracies ranked highest, with 14 of the top 20 countries in western or central Europe.
According to the report, levels of world peace dropped for the third consecutive year. An increased risk of unrest in the Middle East and North Africa drove dramatic changes in national rankings.
“The fall in this year’s index is strongly tied to conflict between citizens and their governments; nations need to look at new ways of creating stability other than through military force,” said Steve Killelea, founder and executive chairman of the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP).
“Despite a decade-long ‘War on Terror,’ the potential for terrorist acts has increased this year offsetting small gains made in prior years,” he added.
The report says that the Middle East and North Africa experienced by far the largest deterioration in its average score of the seven regions for the 2011 GPI, which largely reflects the uprising that began in Tunisia in December 2010.
The outbreak of civil war in Libya has caused the largest deterioration in a GPI score, both regionally and across the 153 countries surveyed. The country was previously ranked relatively high in the GPI, peaking at 46th in 2009, with low scores for most measures of societal safety and security apart from respect for human rights (the Political Terror Scale) and the ease of access to light weapons.
The recent political developments in Bahrain and the dramatic escalation of violence by the army against protestors in mid-February is reflected in sharp deteriorations in most of the country’s measures of societal safety and security.
Egypt’s GPI score deteriorated by the third-largest margin in the region.
Large-scale and ongoing protests in Syria contributed to a sharp deterioration in its GPI score, while recent unrest in Yemen added to the host of disparate and deepening security and socioeconomic challenges for the government.
The country’s GPI tally worsened for the third successive year amid a heightened perception of criminality in society, an increased number of external and internal conflicts fought and rising political instability. Qatar is again the nation ranked most at peace in the region.
According to the IEP, if the world had been 25 per cent more peaceful over the past year the global economy would have reaped an additional economic benefit of $2 trillion.
Only half of this amount would cover the cost of achieving one year of the Millennium Development Goals, eliminating the public debt of Greece, Portugal and Ireland, and cover the rebuilding costs of the most expensive natural disaster in history — the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
Source: http://www.timesofoman.com
The GPI is the world’s leading measure of global peacefulness. It gauges ongoing domestic and international conflict, safety and security in society and militarisation in 153 countries by taking into account 23 separate indicators.
Iceland, now recovering from the 2009 global economic meltdown and largely bereft of internal and external strife, regained first place in the 2011 GPI report. Iceland is followed by New Zealand, Japan, Denmark and the Czech Republic. Small, stable democracies ranked highest, with 14 of the top 20 countries in western or central Europe.
According to the report, levels of world peace dropped for the third consecutive year. An increased risk of unrest in the Middle East and North Africa drove dramatic changes in national rankings.
“The fall in this year’s index is strongly tied to conflict between citizens and their governments; nations need to look at new ways of creating stability other than through military force,” said Steve Killelea, founder and executive chairman of the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP).
“Despite a decade-long ‘War on Terror,’ the potential for terrorist acts has increased this year offsetting small gains made in prior years,” he added.
The report says that the Middle East and North Africa experienced by far the largest deterioration in its average score of the seven regions for the 2011 GPI, which largely reflects the uprising that began in Tunisia in December 2010.
The outbreak of civil war in Libya has caused the largest deterioration in a GPI score, both regionally and across the 153 countries surveyed. The country was previously ranked relatively high in the GPI, peaking at 46th in 2009, with low scores for most measures of societal safety and security apart from respect for human rights (the Political Terror Scale) and the ease of access to light weapons.
The recent political developments in Bahrain and the dramatic escalation of violence by the army against protestors in mid-February is reflected in sharp deteriorations in most of the country’s measures of societal safety and security.
Egypt’s GPI score deteriorated by the third-largest margin in the region.
Large-scale and ongoing protests in Syria contributed to a sharp deterioration in its GPI score, while recent unrest in Yemen added to the host of disparate and deepening security and socioeconomic challenges for the government.
The country’s GPI tally worsened for the third successive year amid a heightened perception of criminality in society, an increased number of external and internal conflicts fought and rising political instability. Qatar is again the nation ranked most at peace in the region.
According to the IEP, if the world had been 25 per cent more peaceful over the past year the global economy would have reaped an additional economic benefit of $2 trillion.
Only half of this amount would cover the cost of achieving one year of the Millennium Development Goals, eliminating the public debt of Greece, Portugal and Ireland, and cover the rebuilding costs of the most expensive natural disaster in history — the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
Source: http://www.timesofoman.com
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