On 18 June Dr Gary Milante, Director of the SIPRI Security and Development Programme, spoke at the launch of the 2014 Global Peace Index (GPI) at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC.
The Global Peace Index, which is published annually by the Institute for Economics and Peace, measures peace in 162 countries (covering 99.6 per cent of the world’s population) according to 22 indicators. It gauges global peace using three themes: the level of safety and security in society, the extent of domestic or international conflict, and the degree of militarization.
The findings of the 2014 GPI show that, while the world is currently experiencing the most peaceful century in human history, the last seven years have shown a notable deterioration in levels of peace. Since 2008, the level of peace has deteriorated in 111 countries, while only 51 countries have increased on this index.
The world has become less peaceful over the last year, mainly due to a rise in terrorist activity, the number of active conflicts and the number of refugees and displaced people. A total of 500 million people—200 million of whom live below the poverty line—are living in countries at risk of instability and conflict. Since 2008 only 4 of the GPI’s 22 indicators showed improvement, while scores on all of the 18 remaining indicators deteriorated.
In Dr Milante's presentation at the launch, he stated that the GPI, which is now in its eighth year, represents an 'important contribution to global peace research. The index is now an institution and increasingly becoming a vital reference resource for those working on peace and security issues'.
In his interventions, Dr Milante encouraged peace researchers to use the 'wealth of data collected and made available by the Institute for Economics and Peace through the GPI and the GPI website' to further explore the index results and promote more developed (and testable) theoretical frameworks on peace and security.
Watch a video from the launch event or contact Gary Milante for more information.