World’s most dangerous and safest countries revealed

According to studies by the Institute of Economic and Peace (IEP) on the global state of peace and violence, it showed that Australia, along with other countries of the world, has become an increasingly dangerous place to live in over the previous year.

IEP ranked 163 countries from safest to most dangerous on the 10th edition of the Global Peace Index.
The report published this month showed that the world became more dangerous in 2016, strengthening concealed decade-long decline in global peacefulness driven basically by growing level of terrorism and higher levels of political instability.

In the report, Australia dropped from 10th most peaceful country to 15th place and is now only rated to have a “high” state of peace. It was last year given a “very high” peaceful rating.
Syria remained the most dangerous country in the world for the second year running, as it continues to be ravaged by the deadliest civil war for over 6 years now.
It was followed by South Sudan (162nd safest), Iraq (161st safest), Afghanistan (160th safest) and Somalia (159th safest).
Yemen, Ukraine and Libya suffered the greatest decline moving into the top 10 most dangerous countries, as conflicts in the three countries show little sign of subsiding anytime soon.
The Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan and North Korea sustained “very low” peace ratings but moved out of the bottom 10.

The countries were ranked on “militarization, society and security, and domestic and international conflict”.
Iceland was named the world’s most peaceful country for the sixth year in a row, followed by Denmark, Austria, New Zealand and Portugal.
Panama, Thailand and Sri Lanka showed greatest improvements in peace.

Majority of terrorist activities was highly focused in five countries — Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan, with the breadth of terrorism extending, with only 23 percent of countries in the list not facing terrorist occurrence.
Europe, which remains the world most peaceful region, saw its average score decline in this year’s report after terrorist attacks in Paris and Brussels, with deaths from terrorism in Europe doubling over the last five years.

According to the report: “The single greatest indicator change occurred on terrorism impact, which deteriorated by more than 20 per cent on average, followed by refugees and internally displaced people and internal conflict deaths.”

It said terrorism was “at an all-time high, battle deaths from conflict are at a 25-year high, and the number of refugees and displaced people are at a level not seen in 60 years.”

Refugees and displaced persons have increased dramatically over the last 10 years, doubling to approximately 60 million people between 2007 and 2016, nearly one per cent of the world’s population.

The report found: “There are nine countries with more than 10 per cent of their population classified as refugees or displaced persons with Somalia and South Sudan having more than 20 per cent of their population displaced and Syria with over 60 per cent displaced.”

The study discovered that, while 81 countries improved, the decline in another 79  countries supersedes these gains, meaning that peace declined at a quicker rate than in the past year.
Despite this some of the most peaceful countries are now recording historically high levels of peace.
The economic impact of violence on the global economy totaled $13.6 trillion or 13.3 percent of gross world product, equivalent to 11 times the size of global foreign direct investment.
The economic impact of violence was $137 trillion over the last decade — greater than global GDP in 2015.

Top five safest countries
Iceland
Denmark
Austria
New Zealand
Portugal

Five least safe countries
Syria
South Sudan
Iraq
Afghanistan
Somalia.

Source: AAP