Vietnam rated 41st most peaceful in the world, up four places

Tourists on a sightseeing tour in Trang An Scenic Complex, Ninh Bình Province. — VNA/VNS

HANOI (Vietnam News/Asia News Network): Vietnam is the 41tst most peaceful country among 163 countries and territories studied in the 2023 Global Peace Index, up four places compared to the year before.

The Australia-based Institute for Economics and Peace’s annual study measures a nation’s state of peace across three domains: societal safety and security, the extent of ongoing domestic and international conflict, and the degree of militarisation.

With the score of 1.745 (the lower the better), Vietnam was among the nations with “high” level of peace, joining the ranks of Germany (15), Netherlands (16), Malaysia (19), United Kingdom (37), Laos (46), Indonesia (53), South Korea (43), Argentina (54), Chile (58), Cyprus (64), etc.

In the Asia-Pacific region with 19 countries and territories measured in the index, Vietnam is the 7th most peaceful place, after New Zealand and Singapore in the first and second place, but higher than South Korea (8th) and Cambodia (13th), China (14th), or North Korea (19th).

In the GPI ongoing domestic and international conflict domain specifically, Vietnam’s peacefulness is squarely among the top one third of countries measured with 1.403 in score.

Iceland, Mauritius, Singapore, and Uruguay are the only four countries with perfect score of 1.0.

Vietnam is also placed in the top third in the societal safety and security, as well as the militarisation domains.

The study also estimates that Vietnam suffers about 6 per cent in percentage of GDP/or US$1,200 per capita as the economic costs of violence, making the country the 99th in terms of being most affected by violence.

Ukraine, Afghanistan, Sudan and North Korea top the list of suffering the most from economic costs of violence, with losses as percentage as their GDP estimated at 63, 47, 30, and 39 per cent, respectively.

The economic impact of violence on the global economy in 2022 was $17.5 trillion in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms. This figure is equivalent to 12.9 per cent of the world’s GDP or $2,200 per person, increasing by 6.6 per cent from the previous year, the study noted.

According to this year's findings, there has been a 0.42 per cent decrease in the average level of global peacefulness, marking the thirteenth decline in peacefulness in the last fifteen years.

In 2022, 84 countries have improved while 79 have deteriorated in peacefulness.

Iceland (with score of 1.124) continues to hold the title of the most peaceful country in the world since 2008, alongside Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, and Austria in the “very high” state of peace category.

Afghanistan remains the least peaceful country in the world for eight consecutive years, followed by Yemen, Syria, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in the “very low” state of peace.

Except for Ireland, all these countries have consistently ranked among the top ten most peaceful or least peaceful countries, which reflects the persistence of peacefulness at both ends of the index.

The conflict in Ukraine has had a significant impact on global peacefulness, with Ukraine and Russia experiencing the largest and fifth-largest declines in peacefulness, respectively.

Haiti, Mali, and Israel have also experienced significant deteriorations in peacefulness.