{UAH} Global peace index charts 'staggering' $9.8tn cost of war

The world's costly drift away from peace continued last year, with nations spending an estimated $9.8trn (£5.8trn) on containing and dealing with violence, according to the latest annual Global Peace Index (GPI).

The 2014 index shows that worldwide peace deteriorated slightly for a seventh consecutive year as a result of the conflicts in Syria, South Sudan and Central African Republic (CAR), tensions over Ukraine and increased terrorism in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines and Libya.

The fighting in Syria saw the country supplant Afghanistan as the world's least peaceful nation, while six months of conflict in South Sudan led to it plummeting 16 places down the index and coming third. Behind it came Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, CAR, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan, North Korea and Russia.

The cost of violence in 2013 – which was equivalent to 11.3% of global GDP – was slightly higher than the previous year, when the bill came in at $9.46trn, or 11% of GDP.

Steve Killelea, the founder and executive chairman of the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) thinktank, which produces the GPI, described the sums spent on the impacts of violence as staggering.

Link:http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/jun/18/global-peace-index-2014-cost-of-war

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Rehema
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