The Global Peace Index (GPI) is a report produced by the Australia-based NGO Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP) which measures the relative position of nations' and regions' peacefulness. The GPI ranks 163 independent states and territories (collectively accounting for 99.7 per cent of the world's population) according to their levels of peacefulness. In the past decade, the GPI has presented trends of increased global violence and less peacefulness.
The GPI (Global Peace Index) is developed in consultation with an international panel of peace experts from peace institutes and think tanks with data collected by the Economist Intelligence Unit. The index was first launched in 2007, with subsequent reports being released annually. In 2015 it ranked 165 countries, up from 121 in 2007. The study was conceived by Australian technology entrepreneur Steve Killelea, and is endorsed by individuals such as former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the Dalai Lama, and 2008 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari. The updated index is released each year at events in London, Washington, D.C., and at the United Nations Secretariat in New York City.
The 2026 GPI indicates Iceland, New Zealand, Switzerland, Slovenia, Ireland, Austria, Portugal, and Singapore to be the most peaceful countries, and Russia, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ukraine, Israel, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Mali, Somalia, Pakistan, Myanmar, and the Central African Republic to be the least peaceful ones. Among the top 7 most populous nations accounting for over half of the world's population and approximately half of the total GDP of the world, Indonesia ranks 69th overall on the Global Peace Index, China 118th, Brazil 124th, India 127th, the United States 134th, Nigeria 142nd and Pakistan 152nd. Findings of the 2026 GPI indicate that the world became less peaceful for the 15th time in the last 18 years, with the average level of country peacefulness deteriorating by 0.7 per cent over the prior year.IEP, Global Peace Index 2026, p. 14.
Ten indicators broadly assess what might be described as safety and security in society. Their assertion is that low crime rates, minimal incidences of terrorist acts and violent demonstrations, harmonious relations with neighbouring countries, a stable political scene, and a small proportion of the population being internally displaced or refugees can be suggestive of peacefulness.
Methodology Indicators of peacefulness In 2017, 23 indicators were used to establish peacefulness scores for each country. The indicators were originally selected with the assistance of an expert panel in 2007 and are reviewed by the expert panel on an annual basis. The scores for each indicator are normalised on a scale of 1–5, whereby eight qualitative indicators are banded into five groupings, and quantitative ones are scored from 1–5, to the third decimal point. A table of the indicators is below.Information about indicators and methodology "2013 Global Peace Index"(PDF). Institute for Economics and Peace. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-12-10. Retrieved 2013-06-24. In the table, UCDP stands for the Uppsala Conflict Data Program maintained by the University of Uppsala in Sweden, EIU for The Economist Intelligence Unit, UNSCT for the United Nations Survey of Criminal Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems, ICPS is the International Centre for Prison Studies at King's College London, IISS for the International Institute for Strategic Studies publication The Military Balance, and SIPRI for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Arms Transfers Database.
IndicatorSourceCodingNumber and duration of internal conflictsUCDP, IEPTotal numberNumber of deaths from external organized conflictUCDP Armed Conflict DatasetTotal numberNumber of deaths from internal organized conflictInternational Institute for Strategic Studies, Armed Conflict DatabaseTotal numberNumber, duration, and role in external conflictsUCDP Battle-related Deaths Dataset, IEPTotal numberIntensity of organized internal conflictEIUQualitative scale, ranked 1 to 5Relations with neighbouring countriesEIUQualitative scale, ranked 1 to 5Level of perceived criminality in societyEIUQualitative scale, ranked 1 to 5Number of refugees and displaced persons as percentage of populationUNHCR and IDMCRefugee population by country or territory of origin, plus the number of a country's internally displaced people (IDP's) as a percentage of the country's total populationPolitical instabilityEIUQualitative scale, ranked 1 to 5Impact of terrorismGlobal Terrorism Index (IEP)Quantitative scale, ranked 1 to 5Political terrorAmnesty International and US State DepartmentQualitative scale, ranked 1 to 5Number of homicides per 100,000 peopleUNODC Surveys on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (CTS); EIU estimatesTotal numberLevel of violent crimeEIUQualitative scale, ranked 1 to 5Likelihood of violent demonstrationsEIUQualitative scale, ranked 1 to 5Number of jailed persons per 100,000 peopleWorld Prison Brief, Institute for Criminal Policy Research at Birkbeck, University of LondonTotal numberNumber of internal security officers and police per 100,000 peopleUNODC CTS; EIU estimatesTotal number; Civil police force distinct from national guards or local militiaMilitary expenditure as a percentage of GDPThe Military Balance and IISSCash outlays of central or federal government to meet costs of national armed forces, as a percentage of GDP, scores from 1 to 5 based on percentagesNumber of armed-services personnel per 100,000The Military Balance and IISSAll full-time active armed-services personnelVolume of transfers of major conventional weapons as recipient (imports) per 100,000 peopleSIPRI Arms Transfers DatabaseImports of major conventional weapons per 100,000 peopleVolume of transfers of major conventional weapons as supplier (exports) per 100,000 peopleSIPRI Arms Transfers DatabaseExports of major conventional weapons per 100,000 peopleFinancial contribution to UN peacekeeping missionsUnited Nations Committee on Contributions and IEPPercentage of countries' "outstanding payments versus their annual assessment to the budget of the current peacekeeping missions" over an average of three years, scored from 1–5 scale based on percentage of promised contributions metNuclear and heavy weapons capabilityThe Military Balance, IISS, SIPRI, UN Register of Conventional Arms and IEP 1–5 scale based on accumulated points; 1 point per armoured vehicle and artillery pieces, 5 points per tank, 20 points per combat aircraft, 100 points per warship, 1000 points for aircraft carrier and nuclear submarineEase of access to small arms and light weaponsEIUQualitative scale, ranked 1 to 5
Indicators not already ranked on a 1 to 5 scale were converted by using the following formula: , where max(x) and min(x) are the highest and lowest values for that indicator of the countries ranked in the index. The 0 to 1 scores that resulted were then converted to the 1 to 5 scale. Individual indicators were then weighted according to the expert panel's judgment of their importance. The scores were then tabulated into two weighted sub-indices: internal peace, weighted at 60% of a country's final score, and external peace, weighted at 40% of a country's final score. "Negative Peace", defined as the absence of violence or of the fear of violence, is used as the definition of peace to create the Global Peace Index. An additional aim of the GPI database is to facilitate deeper study of the concept of positive peace, or those attitudes, institutions, and structures that drive peacefulness in society. The GPI also examines relationships between peace and reliable international measures, including democracy and transparency, education and material well-being. As such, it seeks to understand the relative importance of a range of potential determinants, or "drivers", which may influence the nurturing of peaceful societies, both internally and externally.
Statistical analysis is applied to GPI data to uncover specific conditions conducive of peace. Researchers have determined that Positive Peace, which includes the attitudes, institutions, and structures that pre-empt conflict and facilitate functional societies, is the main driver of peace. The eight pillars of positive peace are well-functioning government, sound business environment, acceptance of the rights of others, good relations with neighbours, free flow of information, high levels of human capital, low levels of corruption, and equitable distribution of resources. Well-functioning government, low levels of corruption, acceptance of the rights of others, and good relations with neighbours are more important in countries suffering from high levels of violence. Free flow of information and sound business environment become more important when a country is approaching the global average level of peacefulness, also described as the Mid-Peace level. Low levels of corruption is the only Pillar that is strongly significant across all three levels of peacefulness. This suggests it is an important transformational factor at all stages of a nation's development.
Potential issues According to The Economist, the weighting of military expenditure "may seem to give heart to freeloaders: countries that enjoy peace precisely because others (often the USA) care for their defence". The Global Peace Index has been criticised for not including indicators specifically relating to violence against women and children.
Conceptual criticism
Johan Galtung, in a 2016 editorial titled "Charlatanism: 'The Positive Peace Index'", argued that the IEP's framework omits structural violence and accordingly classifies "societies-regions-worlds so repressive that violence is not needed" as peaceful. In his earlier papers, he defined positive peace and negative peace, as well as the concept structural violence. He and other researchers considered economic blockades and sanctions an insidious form of structure violence.Galtung, Johan (1969). "Violence, Peace, and Peace Research". Journal of Peace Research. 6 (3): 167–191.
Extending this line of criticism, peace researchers Peter T. Coleman and Kyong Mazzaro identified in 2013 a fundamental measurement asymmetry in the GPI: both the original GPI and the later Positive Peace Index (PPI) overwhelmingly measure the absence of negative conditions rather than the presence of positive ones. A coding of the PPI indicators found that 73 per cent measured negative conditions (e.g., crime victimisation, homicide rates, perceived discrimination) while only 27 per cent assessed positive ones; combined with the GPI, the negative-to-positive ratio approached 7:1. Coleman and Mazzaro argued that decades of research in peace psychology, including John Gottman's findings that the predictors of divorce and the predictors of marital happiness are qualitatively distinct, and the authors' own studies of Israeli and Palestinian motivations, demonstrate that the drivers of sustainable peace are fundamentally different from the inverse of the drivers of violence. They proposed that sustainable peace be measured through a framework that tracks both the decreasing probability of destructive conflict and the increasing probability of cooperation, justice, and well-being, drawing on evidence that social systems thrive when the ratio of positive to negative dynamics exceeds approximately 3:1 to 5:1.