DUSHANBE, June 12, 2013, Asia-Plus – Tajikistan has been ranked down 19 places to number 118 among 162 countries in the 2013 Global Peace Index (GPI).
Tajikistan’s fall in rankings has reportedly resulted from deterioration of economic opportunities of the population, election process, civil freedoms, political stability and relations with neighboring countries as well as from rise in threat of internal conflict and so forth.
Meanwhile, the other Central Asia’s countries are ranked as follows: Kazakhstan – 78th; Turkmenistan – 103rd; Uzbekistan – 124th; and Kyrgyzstan – 131st.
The Russian Federation was reportedly ranked 155th, down from 153.
The top three most peaceful countries are Iceland, Denmark and New Zealand with a newly elected government and a steady recovery from the 2011 turmoil, Libya had the biggest improvement in peace score since last year.
The three least peaceful countries are Afghanistan, Somalia and Syria. Syria’s score dropped by the largest margin, with the biggest ever score deterioration in the history of the GPI.
The Global Peace Index (GPI) is an attempt to measure the relative position of nations” and regions” peacefulness. It is the product of Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) and developed in consultation with an international panel of peace experts from peace institutes and think tanks with data collected and collated by the Economist Intelligence Unit. The list was launched first in May 2007, then continued yearly. It is claimed to be the first study to rank countries around the world according to their peacefulness. It ranks 162 countries (up from 121 in 2007).
Factors examined by the authors include internal factors such as levels of violence and crime within the country and factors in a country”s external relations such as military expenditure and wars.
