Uses of the Global Peace Index

How Governments can Improve their Nation's Peacefulness

The Global Peace Index is a measure that governments can use to help increase the peacefulness of their nations. Nations hold the key to peace and can improve their nation's peacefulness by supporting initiatives at national and local levels and by using the Global Peace Index to measure the success of their initiatives.

The methodology of the Global Peace Index can also be adapted to help measure the peacefulness of regions within a nation, there is no reason why it cannot be used even at the level of cities, towns or counties. By using only the internal indicators as a measure the methodology can now be tailored for use internally.

By having a measurement, various programs can now be evaluated for their effectiveness. By applying programs to small areas many initiatives can be evaluated with cost effectiveness to assess which programs are the most effective. This now provides an effective way of assessing the costs and effectiveness of peace. Further economic models would need to be built up to understand the full benefits to the community. These models would cover such components as costs of incarceration, reduced policing, improved business environment, lessened security and the soft benefit of improved happiness within the local community.

Probably one of the greatest challenges to government action in improving peace is to sustain the initiatives over time. Having a mechanism to measure progress provides the justification to sustain the initiatives.

Governments will now also have a tool by which they can measure their own performance against their peace building programs. Governments may decide to focus on particular indicators that perform more poorly thereby, over time, improving their performance.

The Global Peace Index may also provide a tool for which the people of a nation, state, county or city can hold their governments accountable. Peace, well-being and happiness are all closely related, therefore peace should be of significance in any political process.

Benefits to Business

A widespread but mistaken view is that international business interests are at odds with creating responsible and peaceful societies. There is a clear relationship between peace and an improving business environment. In fact, it can be argued that the success of global business is linked directly to the stability and civil order that peace provides.

Business benefits greatly from an environment of peace. Understanding the attributes of peace allows governments to better understand what they can do to improve the business environment This knowledge allows business to make more confident investment decisions on the basis of actual and predicted stability in a community or nation.

The costs to business of increased levels of violence needs to be analyzed and understood. These costs will vary from business to business, but these types of analyses may show that some businesses become more viable in higher levels of violence than other businesses. Conversely, some businesses may be more beneficial to economic recovery as nations improve peacefulness.

There is a correlation between per capita income and peacefulness. This leads to some important questions: Why do more peaceful nations experience better economic performance than less peaceful nations? How can the predicators of growth be leveraged in less peaceful environments? How can the global community identify what kinds of business would benefit from increased national peacefulness and encourage business in these areas?

Through understanding the peacefulness of nations, business is better equipped to make successful investments. The life of most infrastructure can be measured in decades. If it was known that a country was moving towards peacefulness then it would provide a more secure place to invest with decreasing costs of business as the nation increased its peacefulness. Additionally, the local market should improve and expand with increased peacefulness.

As nations become more peaceful the costs of business will decrease. Security costs, insurance premiums and costs of transport are some of the areas where savings will be made. Additionally, it will be easier to hire expatriates and management's time will move away from security issues to more productive uses of time.

If the direction of peacefulness can be measured then new forms investment analysis could be done. Would bonds be more aggressively priced for nations that were becoming peaceful due to decreased business risk? Could funds be established that invested in countries that had increasing peacefulness? Would loans be more secure and could banks be more aggressive with their loan portfolios in nations whose peacefulness was improving?

Uses for International Negotiations

International action to achieve peace should provide an overall direction for practical policies and diplomacy. The Global Peace Index can help shape new forms of international relationships. By measuring the peacefulness of nations, it is now possible to tie international relationship to quantifiable levels of improved performance in peace.

International aid can be tied to programs that worked on the structural elements of peace and the Global Peace Index or its methodology could be used as a tool to measure the improvements towards to goals that were tied to the aid.

If it were possible to know which nations are moving towards peace then development programs could be set to enhance their progress, similarly nations that were moving away from peace would need different types of programs. Development aid maybe more suited to nations that were improving their peace and peace-building may better suited to nations that were moving away from peace.

Treaties between nations could be built around both nations improving their peacefulness. By placing emphasis on the external measures of peace treaties could be developed that aimed at certain improvements in peacefulness, thereby creating the right environment of trust and cooperation to enhance the likelihood of success for sustainability initiatives.

Furthermore, there may be scope to establish an international alliance called P10 that includes government representatives from the top 10 most peaceful nations of the Global Peace Index. The P10 may play a particular role in the funding, support of thought leadership in peaceful initiatives.

At various levels within the Global Peace Index nations there may be alliances of nations aligned along economic, religious, political or social lines, with the specific aim of aiding each country within that alliance to improve there internal and external peacefulness.

Enhance Education

There is a positive relationship between education and peace, ie peace is necessary for education and education is an essential element of creating and sustaining peace, however teaching peace is not currently a core part of the education curriculum in most nations.

Once the drivers of peace are better understood and incorporated into the education syllabus our future leaders of society will become better equipped to create peace in their working environments. Students that have a better understanding of peace will become more discerning voters.

The Global Peace Index and other tools that will be developed in the future could be incorporated into high school and university studies. It allows students to know what the indicators of peace are and why these measurements are used to measure the peacefulness of societies.

Incorporating case studies of the most peaceful nations into education curriculum would improve our understanding of the key factors in everyday life that helped create a more peaceful society.

The economics of peace are still in their infancy but as more knowledge becomes available and the subject is incorporated into syllabuses society, business and individuals will benefit through a better understanding of how to generate wealth.

Similarly understanding the economies of nations that are peaceful will provide models by which less developed nations can benefit in their quest to improve their status.

If history taught why nations became peaceful and how they sustained their peace then th nation would be better equipped to create peace both within its borders and in its relations with its neighbours.

Benefits to Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs)

NGOs provide a valuable service in helping to create conditions for growth and sustainability in many developing nations by providing aid for development infrastructure such as clean water, agricultural enhancements, famine relief, education, micro credit and other areas.

It will be easier to justify aid money that is directed to towards initiatives that may enhance the capabilities of nations or societies to avoid potential future violent conflict.

By understanding the level of peacefulness and the direction of those societies towards or away from peacefulness then it would be easier to understand what type of aid would be more appropriately provided.

The Global Peace Index also has the potential to provide a tool for NGOs to hold their recipients accountable. Additionally, it can provide a tool for donors to hold NGOs accountable.

The Global Peace Index provides NGOs with a an additional measure by which they can understand, assist and work with other NGOs, fostering a better appreciation of other NGOs work. By matching the locations in which an NGO operates their programmes with those countries rankings on the index,  a collective view of the operating environment and ‘peacefulness metric' can be measured. Overlaps in some countries may lead to opportunities to broaden programmes to build peace still within the charter of each NGO.

Over time, the Global Peace Index will provide a benchmark for all NGOs of the overall relative performance of the world in working towards peace. Thereby offering a macro view of the relevance and importance of their combined work.