Global peacefulness has deteriorated in 2022, the eighth year in a row it's done so, according to a study by the Institute for Economics and Peace 2023. Study shows that Global is at the highest it's been in 15 years, and some governments – the U.K., for instance, has added 15 per cent of the world's landmass to a list where travel is ill-advised.
The 17th Global Peace Index conducted its annual evaluation of which countries in the world are the safest and its newly-released 2023 rankings show that Iceland still remains the most peaceful country in the world, followed by Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand and Austria—and many of these countries currently hold top spots in the EIU's 2023 study on the most liveable cities.
The 2023 Global Peace Index finds that the world is a little less safe than last year, which was also the case the year prior, due to the impacts of the global pandemic. The report highlights that while countries are spending less on the military, many more are now involved in external conflict. The number of people who have died from conflicts around the world in the past year is the highest it has been this century since the Rwandan genocide and more than half of the world's countries (56 per cent) are involved in external conflict, showing just how far conflict has become increasingly international.