Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Nepal ranks 76th most peaceful country in the world

Nepal is the 76th most peaceful country in the world, according to the thirteenth 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 Global Peace Index 2019 – the world’s leading measure of global peacefulness that covers 99.7 per cent of the world’s population – has awarded Nepal with a score of 2.0003. “Nepal has improved its position by 12 ranks from the previous year,” according to the Index that has ranked Bhutan in the 15th place, Sri Lanka in the 72nd position, and Bangladesh, China, India and Pakistan in 101st, 110th, 141st and 153rd position, respectively. “Afghanistan is in the last (163rd) position of the list.”
“The average South Asian score improved last year due to improvements in Nepal, Pakistan, Bhutan and a slight gain in Afghanistan,” according to the index. “However, the region still has the second lowest rank, just ahead of its neighbour MENA.”
Based on 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators from highly respected sources, and measures the state of peace using three thematic domains: the level of societal safety and security; the extent of ongoing domestic and international conflict; and the degree of militarisation, the GPI report presents the most comprehensive data-driven analysis to date on peace, its economic value, trends, and how to develop peaceful societies.
In addition to presenting the findings from the 2019 GPI, this year’s report includes analysis of trends in Positive Peace: the attitudes, institutions, and structures that create and sustain peaceful societies. It looks at the relationship between the actual peace of a country, as measured by the GPI, and Positive Peace, and how a deficit of Positive Peace is often a predictor of future increases in violent conflict. It also looks at the dynamic relationship between changes in Positive Peace and changes in the economy.
The results this year show that the average level of global peacefulness improved very slightly in the 2019 GPI. This is the first time the index has improved in five years. The average country score improved by 0.09 per cent, with 86 countries improving, and 76 recording deteriorations. The 2019 GPI reveals a world in which the conflicts and crises that emerged in the past decade have begun to abate, but new tensions within and between nations have emerged.
Iceland remains the most peaceful country in the world, a position it has held since 2008. It is joined at the top of the index by New Zealand, Austria, Portugal, and Denmark. Likewise, Bhutan has recorded the largest improvement of any country in the top 20, rising 43 places in the last 12 years.
Afghanistan is now the least peaceful country in the world, replacing Syria, which is now the second least peaceful. South Sudan, Yemen, and Iraq comprise the remaining five least peaceful countries. This is the first year since the inception of the index that Yemen has been ranked amongst the five least peaceful countries.
The economic impact of violence on the global economy in 2018 was $14.1 trillion in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, the report reads, adding that the figure is equivalent to 11.2 per cent of the world’s economic activity (gross world product) or $1,853 for every person. “The economic impact of violence improved by 3.3 per cent during 2018.”
The greatest improvement was in Armed Conflict, which decreased by 29 per cent to $672 billion, owing to a fall in the intensity of conflict in Syria, Colombia and Ukraine. There was also a substantial reduction in the economic impact of terrorism, which fell by 48 per cent from 2017 to 2018.
Violence continues to have a significant impact on economic performance around the globe. In the ten countries most affected by violence, the average economic cost of violence was equivalent to 35 per cent of GDP, compared to just 3.3 per cent in the countries least affected by violence. Syria, Afghanistan and the Central African Republic incurred the largest economic cost of violence in 2018 as a percentage of their GDP, equivalent to 67, 47 and 42 per cent of GDP, respectively.
The economic impact of violence model includes data on suicide for the first time in the 2019 GPI. The report finds that the economic impact of suicide is higher than that of Armed Conflict, amounting to $737 billion in 2018.
Similarly, the report also finds that Positive Peace is dynamically associated with economic development. There is a strong correlation between changes in the Positive Peace Index and GDP growth between 2005 and 2018. “Greater household consumption is a key reason for the link between improvements in Positive Peace and economic performance,” it reads, adding that households are particularly helped by improvements in public administration. 

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