London (EFE) and Peace (IEP).
The Global Peace Index is a project that measures the degree of turmoil in the world with quantitative data from 163 countries, comprising 99.7% of the population.
This is the ninth year since 2014 that data has revealed declining trends in global peace and security, but 2022 has been especially significant.
According to the report, deaths caused by war have increased by 96% compared to 2021, with 238,000 deaths.
Ukraine and Ethiopia
A total of 79 countries have experienced a widespread increase in their seizure levels, most notably Ethiopia, Myanmar, Ukraine, Israel and South Africa.
The wars in Ukraine and Ethiopia have caused the highest number of deaths in 2022, with some 83,000 and 100,000 victims, respectively.
The most “peaceful” countries, the report shows, are Iceland, Denmark, Ireland and New Zealand, while Spain ranks 32nd.
For the sixth consecutive year, Afghanistan is the most troubled country, followed by Yemen, Syria, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
On the other side is Europe, which continues to be the most peaceful region in the world, despite the increase in public investment in defense and tensions with neighboring countries due to the war in Ukraine.
In the case of Latin America, Uruguay and Colombia would be the safest and most conflictive countries, respectively.
Despite the “political instability” and “the omnipresence of organized crime”, the situation in the countries of South America is gradually improving compared to previous years.
The economic impact
In economic terms, the global impact of this escalation of generalized violence has increased by 17% compared to the previous year, with a cost of 17.5 trillion dollars (about 16 trillion euros) in 2022, which is equivalent to 12, 9% of global GDP.
In particular, the economic impact of violence in Ukraine has increased by 479% or 449,000 million dollars (411,240 million euros), the equivalent of 64% of the country’s GDP.
Additionally, 92 countries have increased their military spending since 2008: the largest increases came from China, the US and India.
The report indicates that the internationalization of conflicts, caused by the intervention of third countries (as is the case of Syria, Ukraine and Libya, among others), increased “considerably” in 2022, with a total of 91 countries involved in external conflicts in compared to the 58 participating countries in 2008.
The study stresses that the geopolitical tensions between the US and China, widespread military interventionism, the low cost of production and easy access to certain military technology (the use of drones increased by 40.8% in 2022) augurs a few years future doomed to conflict.