SD more peaceful than SA and USA'

(UNISWA student journalist)

In a yearly report recently released by the Global Peace Index (GPI), the Kingdom of Swaziland has scooped a good position far ahead of many African countries in the region.

Swaziland outranks the Republic of South Africa which is placed at position 121; Zimbabwe 135, Kenya 120, Ethiopia 127, Somalia 148. Botswana is the highest ranked African country in position 33.

According to the report, the most peaceful country in the world is New Zealand whilst the worst country is Iraq.

The report states that Africa is the most improved region of the world in terms of peace having experienced fewer conflicts, less military spending, and improved cross border relations.

However, the report decries that sub-Saharan Africa still remains one of the planet’s least peaceful areas with nine states featuring in the bottom 20 countries listed. Swaziland is far above the bottom 20 countries.

"The world has become less peaceful over the last year despite a drop in the number of armed conflicts," reads part of the report. The report notes an increasing rate of homicide and violent crime across the world.

The report says in Swaziland, homicide cases are high with a ratio of four in five cases reported which is too high. Political instability, level of disrespect for human rights, likelihood of violent demonstrations, easy access to small arms, military capability amount to three cases out of five which is high. The report says the potential for terrorist acts and the number of jailed of jailed population per 100 000 make two cases out of five which is low.

The report states that the criteria used in positioning the countries are; violent crime, political stability and military expenditure correlated against a number of social development indicators such as corruption, freedom of the press, respect for human rights and school enrolment rate.

The report says Swaziland has been included for the first time.

GPI is published annually by the Institute for Economic and Peace which is a global think-tank that researches the relationship between economics, business and peace. The Rankings are compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) using the above criteria.

Comments

I found the website of the Global Peace Index http://www.visionofhumanity.org to be very useful, particularly the thermal maps.
June 28, 2010, 9:33 am, cam (cschippa@visionofhumanity.org)

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