Earlier this month Vision Of Humanity released its latest Global Peace Index of 158 countries, on it  South Africa place 127th. SA dropped 29 places from when it sat at 98 in 2007. Conversely, the world has become more peaceful for the first time in three years.

The Global Peace Index (GPI) is produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace and uses 23 quantitative measures to rank 158 nations. This year marks its sixth iteration and some interesting findings were made. For the first time since the rankings have been made, Sub-Saharan Africa was not the least peaceful region in the world, that title now belongs to the Middle East and North Africa. Sri Lanka shot up 30 places to 103rd thanks to the end of a civil war. Syria experienced the opposite and dropped by 30 places, the largest margin of any country, to 147th.

South Africa was let down primarily by “perceived criminality in society”, “homicides”, “violent crimes”, “access to weapons” and “organised conflict” within the country. Below is a comparison of SA, USA and UK.

Topping the list as the most peaceful country in the world is Iceland, which also claimed the number one spot last year. Somalia occupy the bottom spot.

The interactive map on Vision Of Humanity’s website is very user-friendly and allows you to compare up to three countries, head-to-head. On the site there is also a full breakdown of rankings and results as well as other findings of the study, and if you have the time it’s well worth some investigation.

[Source: Vision Of Humanity, IOL News]