Someone says, “First seek the kingdom of peace and all other things shall added unto you.” Thus, anyone who thinks the grim economic conditions and the garrulous political environment in Liberia connote total doom and gloom for the postwar country need to rethink their disposition. This is so because the scarcest of factors for national development and progress—peace—is solidly abundantly in store in Liberia; courtesy of the 2019 Global Peace Index which indicates the Liberia is more peaceful this year than France, Greece and other great countries of world the world. The Analyst reports.
The revered think tank, Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) has issued its 2019 Global Peace Index report in which it named Liberia among 60 peaceful countries in the world.
According to the report, Liberia is more peaceful than e France, Greece and other great Europeans countries.
A snapshot of the global state of peace showed 163 countries in the world amongst which Liberia ranks 59. On the list of Sub-Saharan Africa, Liberia ranks 10 among 44 African countries in term of being peaceful.
This is the thirteenth edition of the Global Peace Index (GPI), which ranks 163 independent states and territories according to their level of peacefulness.
The GPI is the world’s leading measure of global peacefulness produced by the IEP.
This year’s report presents the most comprehensive data-driven analysis to date on peace, its economic value, trends, and how to develop peaceful societies.
“The GPI covers 99.7 per cent of the world’s population, using 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators from highly respected sources, and measures the state of peace using three thematic domains: the level of Societal Safety and Security; the extent of Ongoing Domestic and International Conflict; and the degree of Militarisation.
In addition to presenting the findings from the 2019 GPI, this year’s report includes analysis of trends in Positive Peace: the attitudes, institutions, and structures that create and sustain peaceful societies.
The 2019 GPI looks at the relationship between the actual peace of a country, as measured by the GPI, and Positive Peace, and how a deficit of Positive Peace is often a predictor of future increases in violent conflict.
It also looks at the dynamic relationship between changes in Positive Peace and changes in the economy.
The results this year show that the average level of global peacefulness improved very slightly in the 2019 GPI. This is the first time the index has improved in five years.
The average country score improved by 0.09 per cent, with 86 countries improving, and 76 recording deteriorations. The 2019 GPI reveals a world in which the conflicts and crises that emerged in the past decade have begun to abate, but new tensions within and between nations have emerged.
“Iceland remains the most peaceful country in the world, a position it has held since 2008. It is joined at the top of the index by New Zealand, Austria, Portugal, and Denmark. Bhutan has recorded the largest improvement of any country in the top 20, rising 43 places in the last 12 years.
“Afghanistan is now the least peaceful country in the world, replacing Syria, which is now the second least peaceful. South Sudan, Yemen, and Iraq comprise the remaining five least peaceful countries. This is the first year since the inception of the index that Yemen has been ranked amongst the five least peaceful countries“.
Positive News for Liberia
The 2019 June GPI report places Liberia in category with UK, Norway, Sweden, Germany and other powerful nations in the world.
For a country currently seared by inflation and hungering for quick economic recovery in which foreign investment and tourism are key, the favorite ranking of Liberia as a very peaceful country is welcoming, according to pundits.
The country in the last year and half under President Weah has come under pernicious political bickering, particularly amongst opposition elements, who have chosen the path of crude criticisms, street protests and even vituperation against the political leadership.
Pundits say it takes the extreme tolerance of President Weah to navigate a politically charged country without disruption to the peace.
The pundits hail the president for his tolerance and urge him to continue to demonstrate the tenets of democracy which underpin the level of peace the country enjoys.
Comments are closed.