The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) has recently released its annual “Global Peace Index.” While the results show that world peace has deteriorated over the past year, Germany got slightly more peaceful, moving up to 17th place in the rankings.

Global peace falls in 2020

The Global Peace Index 2021 has been released and unfortunately, it seems that the world became even less peaceful over the past year. According to the study, global peace deteriorated by 0,07 percent in 2020, which marks the ninth time in the past 13 years that global peacefulness has fallen.

The Global Peace Index ranking uses 23 indicators to rank how peaceful the 163 countries included are. These indicators include access to small arms, homicide rate, political instability and violence by police, among others. These indicators fit into three broad domains: safety and security, ongoing conflict and militarisation. Over the past year, ongoing conflict has improved significantly, denoting a movement towards peace. However, the safety and security domain worsened slightly last year, as did the militarisation domain, albeit much more significantly.

The effect of COVID-19 on world peace

The coronavirus had a significant effect on global peace last year. Civil unrest rose significantly, mainly due to the public responses to the crisis and the subsequent attempts to control the spread of the virus. “Although the level of conflict and terrorism fell overall in 2020, political instability and violent demonstrations have increased,” said Steve Killelea, founder of the IEP.

Germany is slightly more peaceful

Germany climbed one place in the rankings this year and now sits in 17th place, joint with Croatia. According to the study, Germany’s levels of peace were significantly impacted by the coronavirus, as well as higher levels of militarisation. However, the Federal Republic scored well across the other domains, ranking as one of the top 20 most peaceful countries in ongoing conflict and safety and security.

The 20 most peaceful countries are listed below (Germany is ranked joint 17th with Croatia):

1. Iceland
2. New Zealand
3. Denmark
4. Portugal
5. Slovenia
6. Austria
7. Switzerland
8. Ireland
9. Czech Republic
10. Canada
11. Singapore
12. Japan
13. Finland
14. Norway
15. Sweden
16. Australia
17. Croatia
18. Germany
19. Hungary
20. Belgium

You can visit the Global Peace Index website for more information, including the entire ranking and the 2021 report.