A SURVEY by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), an independent, non-partisan and non-profit think tank headquartered in Sydney, ranked Ghana recently as the second most peaceful country in Africa and the 38th globally out of 163 countries.
Ghana scored 1.715, a two point improvement from its previous record in the Global Peace Index report.
Leading Ghana was Mauritius, which ranked 28th globally.
Coming after Ghana was Botswana which also ranked 41st on the global level.
On the global level, Iceland emerged the most peaceful country in the world, scoring 1.1, followed by New Zealand, Denmark, Portugal and Slovenia which came second, third, fourth and fifth in that order.
The 2021 Global Peace Index also touched on some five least peaceful countries in the world. These include Iraq, which ranked 159th, South Sudan which ranked 160th, Syria which was 161st, Yemen which came 162nd and Afghanistan which emerged the last at 163rd.
The report indicated also that the ongoing pandemic has had “a significant impact on levels of conflict and violence,” noting that the level of civil unrest went up in 2020.
It said over 5,000 pandemic-related violent events were recorded between January 2020 and April 2021 worldwide.
The report continued that “the average level of global peacefulness deteriorated by 0.07 per cent in the 2021 Global Peace Index. Although a relatively small deterioration, this is the ninth time in the last 13 years that global peacefulness has deteriorated.”
It furthermore stated that “In the past year, 87 countries recorded an improvement in peacefulness, while 73 countries recorded deterioration. Three countries recorded no change in their overall score. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region remained the world’s least peaceful region. It is home to three of the five least peaceful countries in the world. However, it recorded the largest regional improvement over the past year.”
The report named Europe as the most peaceful region in the world.
The report is the 15th edition of the Global Peace Index (GPI) which measures global peacefulness.
IEP has offices in New York, The Hague, Mexico City, Brussels and Harare. It has international partners and also collaborates with intergovernmental organisations to conduct surveys and measure peace, especially its economic value.