Durban – South Africa has been ranked as the 118th most peaceful country to live in out of 163 – just 45 places above Afghanistan – which has been rated as the most dangerous place to live on the planet.
This is according to the 2022 Global Peace Index (GPI) released by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) which ranks 163 independent states and territories according to their level of peacefulness.
This is the 16th edition of the GPI and for South Africa marks an improvement in its rankings, having been ranked 123rd in the 14th and 15th editions, in 2020 and 2021 – an improvement of five places.
According to the GPI, the study covers 163 countries comprising 99.7% of the world’s population, using 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators from highly respected sources.
It measures the state of peace across three domains: the level of societal safety and security, the extent of ongoing domestic and international conflict, and the degree of militarisation.
The state of peace is ranked from very high, high, medium, low, very low to not included.
Iceland, was rated as the most peaceful country to live in with a very high level of peacefulness, while South Africa is seen to have a medium level of peacefulness.
South Africa fares better than the US which is rated as having a low level of peacefulness, sitting 129th on the rankings, while our neighbour, Zimbabwe is in the same category of peacefulness in 127th position.
There are 13 countries ranked in the very low level of peacefulness category, with seven African countries, Mali, Libya, Sudan, Central African Republic, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Sudan all falling into this category which is closed off by Afghanistan in 163rd.
Russia and Ukraine, both engaged in the ongoing conflict in that former Soviet Union, Eastern European region, are also ranked in the very low level of peacefulness category with Russia ranked 160th while Ukraine is ranked in 153rd.
“The 2022 GPI finds that the world became less peaceful for the eleventh time in the last 14 years, with the average level of country peacefulness deteriorating by 0.3% over the past year.
“The main driver of the overall deterioration in peacefulness in 2022 was the Ongoing Conflict domain.
“Within this domain, neighbouring countries' relations recorded the largest deterioration, with the largest deterioration being recorded for countries such as Romania, Australia, Burkina Faso, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Myanmar, Sweden and others,” the GPI report said.
It stated that other important contributors to the deterioration in this domain were intensity of internal conflict and deaths from external conflict.
“The outbreak of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022 had a substantial impact on peace within the European region.
“While Russia and Ukraine are part of the Russia and Eurasia region, the conflict had repercussions that crossed many international borders.
“Of the 10 countries in Europe with the largest deteriorations in peacefulness in 2022, six share a border with either Russia or Ukraine,” the report said.
According to the report, these countries largely had deteriorations in indicators such as political instability and neighbouring countries relations, with the former also likely impacted by rising anti-government sentiment as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
SUNDAY TRIBUNE