Why We Should Invest in Peace

Humanity is currently facing some of the greatest challenges in its history: economic, environmental, social and financial. Yet such tumultuous change provides a unique opportunity for us to reconsider and redefine the issues that are essential to our survival, such as peace.

During the last twenty years humanity has entered into a new epoch in its history.  This has been brought about by a convergence of many factors. Finite environmental barriers are now being reached and on multiple fronts. World population is expected to reach 7 billion within a couple of years and in many places in the world it is already at straining capacity.

Technology is fuelling change at an ever increasing pace which in many ways underpins the growth of globalization. The world is connected in ways that were unimaginable even fifty years ago.  Wars are no longer economically viable.  Change is occurring so fast that nations are struggling to keep up with both the legal and social ramifications. Even our language is changing, daily incorporating new words to describe our changing reality. Our notions and concepts of peace are changing with it.

Peace lies at the centre of being able to manage these many and varied challenges, simply because peace creates the optimum environment in which the other activities that contribute to human growth can take place. In this sense, peace is a facilitator making it easier for workers to produce, businesses to sell, entrepreneurs and scientists to innovate and governments to regulate.

The Global Peace Index is the first study ever to rank the nations of the world by their peacefulness. Now in its fourth year, ancillary research has lead to new and intriguing ways of analysing peace.

Research that has been undertaken using data from the Global Peace Index has shown that societies that have well functioning governments, low levels of corruption, high participation rates in primary education, freedom of the press and good relations with their neighboring states are more likely to be peaceful. It was also noted in the research that when a democracy does not have the above mentioned peace structures then elections can be a catalyst for violence.

The benefits brought about by peace can also be measured in economic terms. Peace does in fact have a monetary value independent of the human values associated with it. It can be expressed in terms of the additional value to global GDP [1] that would ensue from creating a peaceful world.  The Institute for Economics and Peace [2] in conjunction with the Economists for Peace and Security [3] have released an insightful study which assesses the impact of lost peace on the world economy at 7.2 trillion dollars (US$7,200,000,000,000) annually. Over a ten year period this adds up to $US72 trillion[4]. This figure is comprised of $US2.4 trillion annually that would move from industries that create or manage violence to other economic activities and $US4.8 trillion from additional economic activity that had been suppressed through violence.

If the cost of investing in proactive peace-creation was minimal compared to the lost potential caused by violence, then would it not be fitting for business to engage with government to create peace in the markets in which they operate?

Although the ‘Defence Industry’ is a well-defined concept, there is no clear identification or definition of the ‘Peace Industry’. The Peace Industry comprises those companies and industries whose markets improve with improving peacefulness or whose costs decrease with improving peacefulness.  Examples include retail, finance, tourism and insurance. Research indicates that there is a relevant relationship between a nation’s ranking in peacefulness and the size of its retail sector, stock market and tourism industry, and that changes in peacefulness could be used to calculate changes in market size. Understanding these trends will help business to better assess opportunities and avoid risk.

The social values and beliefs that are associated with peace have also been analysed.  By correlating the results of the GPI against global polling data we have been able to gain a better insight into the social environment of peace. The most striking is the extremely high correlation (0.88) between a countrys’ ranking in the Global Peace Index and how positively it is perceived by other nations. This implies that if a nation wishes to improve its international standing then the best way of doing this is to increase its peacefulness as measured by the GPI. Other societal attitudes that correlate with peace are tolerance, belief in the importance of freedom of the press, respect for human rights, not believing that one’s own nation is superior to others and believing that the use of the military should be limited and internationally sanctioned.

But if peace is an essential prerequisite for solving our sustainability challenges and improving our economic and social well-being then having a good understanding of peace is essential.  This poses the question “how well do we understand peace?”. Fifty years ago peace studies were non- existent. Today there are peace and conflict centres in numerous major universities around the world. Over the last century we moved from having departments of war to departments of defence and we are now seeing the emergence of organizations that are lobbing for the creation of departments of peace. While these changes are beneficial in improving our understanding of peace, peace has not yet become germane to the major academic disciplines, nor is there a concerted approach to the cross disciplinary study of peace.

War and violence are not inevitable. All human societies have developed mechanisms for settling unproductive conflicts and providing a conducive environment for human development. This is an essential part of our human nature. As globalization embraces humanity we now need to extend these natural impulses to be globally inclusive and create a peaceful world so that we can move forward with the things that really matter.

Many of the processes of peace are self-reinforcing. Business cannot really develop until conflict stops but once started productive employment can have a self-reinforcing effect.  People become motivated by the improved standard of their lives, rather than seeking retribution for past wrongs. This creates the optimum environment for business to thrive. This is known as a virtuous cycle.  Similarly, when economic development contracts, violence will almost certainly increase, leading to a further deterioration of the business environment.

The Global Peace Index and the research associated with it has helped to increase our understanding of peace, however the field is new, its value to society is not well understood and is also poorly funded. These issues are inter-related but the importance of peace in a global society where the major challenges of this century require international co-operation on scale unparalleled in our history means peace is central to being able to manage a better future. Therefore peace is the pre-requisite for the survival of society as we know it in the 21^st century.

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[1] Gross Domestic Product is an economic measure of the total productivity of a country within its borders.

[2]The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) was established in 2008 as an independent not-for-profit research institute dedicated to developing the inter-relationships between business, peace and economic development.

[3] www.epsusa.org

[4]“Defining Peace Industries and Calculating the Potential Size of a Peace Gross World Product by Country and by Economic Sector”, Jurgen Brauer and John Tepper Marlin, April 2009.