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With so much of strife and violence dominating our world, and the aftermath of the Arab Spring, its violent protests and repressive regimes adding their bit, it is not surprising that world peacefulness declined in 2013. The seventh edition of the Global Peace Index (GPI) showed 5 per cent deterioration in the world’s peacefulness over a six-year period.
Afghanistan, with its two-decade history of conflict, violence and political instability, was at the bottom most rung of the GPI at 162nd place, displacing Somalia and pushing it up to the 161st position. Significantly, the least peaceful regions are Muslim countries — Afghanistan, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Sudan and Pakistan.
At the other end of the scale, Western Europe continued to be the most peaceful region with many of its countries taking up the top 20 ranks.
At the top of the list was Iceland, followed by Denmark and New Zealand. Austria, Switzerland, Japan, Finland, Canada, Sweden and Belgium were the others in the ‘top 10’ most peaceful nations.
But economic challenges pushed down the peaceful index of some European countries, such as the UK, Spain, Greece, France and Cyprus.
While India improved its position by three places, it still remains at an abysmal 141st position. Russia is worse off at 155, while Libya has improved its position by three places to 145.
Military spending
Despite continuing economic woes, military spending as a percentage of the GDP increased during the year (2012), with 59 countries spending more against 36 cutting their military spending.
A surprising member of the second group was the US which decreased its military spend from about 4.6 per cent to 4.1 per cent of its GDP. The countries which increased their Defence spend included Iran, Oman, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Cote d’Ivoire and Congo.
The report estimated the global economic impact of containing violence at $9.46 trillion in 2012 or 11 per cent of the Gross World Product.
“Were the world to reduce its expenditure on violence by half, it could repay the debt of the developing world ($4,076 billion), provide enough money for the European stability mechanism ($900 billion) and fund the Millennium Development Goals ($60 billion),” it concludes.
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