IRELAND HAS ranked as the third most peaceful country in the world, according to the latest Global Peace Index (GPI).
Iceland has taken the top spot as the most peaceful country in the world, followed by New Zealand and Ireland, which was increased three places from last year.
Denmark, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Czechia and Singapore complete the top ten list globally.
Europe remains the most peaceful region and is home to four of the five most peaceful countries in the world.
Iceland once again tops the list in Europe followed by Ireland, which is up from seventh place in the region last year.
Denmark, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Singapore and Japan make up the rest of the top ten most peaceful countries in the world. The United Kingdom placed 34th, while the United States of America ranked 129th.
The GPI, produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace, ranks 163 independent states and territories according to their level of peacefulness using 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators from highly respected sources.
It measures the state of peace across three domains: the level of societal Safety and Security; the extent of Ongoing Domestic and Inter
The GPI found that peacefulness has deteriorated by 0.3 per cent in the 2022, following a trend of the GPI deteriorating in eleven of the past 14 years.
In the past year, 90 countries recorded an improvement, while 71 recorded a deterioration in peacefulness. Three countries recorded no change in their overall score.
The largest deteriorations were recorded in the political terror scale, neighbouring country relations, intensity of internal conflict, number of refugees and IDPs and political instability.
The five countries with the largest deteriorations were Ukraine, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Russia and Haiti.
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine led to a large rise in the number of conflict deaths, as well as sharp deteriorations in indicators such as refugees and internally displaced people, political instability and political terror.
The Ukrainian conflict has caused a large displacement of Ukrainian citizens, with the country now featuring among the ten worst scores for refugees and internally displaced persons.
Other conflicts also influenced the fall in peacefulness, with political and economic instability resulting in five coups occurring within the past year.
These took place in Burkina Faso, Guinea, Chad, Sudan and Mali.
The index has also found that the Covid-19 pandemic continues to have a significant impact on both the US and Canada, with Canada reaching over 3.7 million cases and the US recording over 82m cases as of April 2022.
The pandemic continues to hamper economic and social activity in both countries, with both countries recording a deterioration in political terror and violent demonstrations indicators since the beginning of the pandemic.
See More: Global Peace Index
