LONDON: Five of the ten least peaceful countries globally are located in the Arab world, according to the Global Peace Index 2023, which however said that the Middle East and North Africa region registered some of the largest improvements in security and peace.

Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Iraq ranked 162nd, 161st, 156th, 155th and 154th, respectively, out of 163 countries.

But Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Jordan scored “high” in terms of peace, ranking 21st, 35th, 48th and 62nd, respectively. Iceland, Denmark and Ireland rounded out the top three, respectively.

Released by the Institute for Economics and Peace, the 17th edition of the GPI is the world’s leading measure of global peace.

The rankings are based on an analysis of peace and conflict data and measures of economic security for 99.7 percent of the world’s population.

The 2023 GPI found that overall, the world has become less peaceful for the 13th time in the past 15 years, the conflict in Ukraine has increased levels of insecurity, and conflict-related deaths have increased by 96%.

Nationally, the largest improvements in peace around the world occurred in Libya for the second year in a row, GPI said, followed by Burundi, Oman, Côte d’Ivoire and Afghanistan.

Three major metrics were combined to produce a GPI score: ongoing conflict, safety and security, and militarization.

In the Middle East and North Africa region, a significant decrease in the number of wars led to significant improvements in the measures of “ongoing conflict” and “militarization”.

The region’s “impact of terrorism”, “internal conflicts” and “internal conflict deaths” also saw improvements in the region.

Israel “has witnessed the greatest deterioration in peace in the Middle East and North Africa region, dropping eight places to rank 143 in the gender equality index,” the report said, adding that the country’s overall peace figure has not fallen this low since 2010.

Qatar has maintained its rank as the most peaceful country in the region, a position it has held since 2008.

Yemen was recorded as the least peaceful Arab country for the third year in a row, due to the civil war.

Oman jumped 18 places annually in its ranking at 48, with GPI adopting “militarization” data, which tracks metrics including arms imports and military spending.

The GPI highlighted a significant shift in terrorism trends away from the Middle East and North Africa region, which until 2015 had the highest number of deaths from terrorism.

“In the past eight years, the epicenter of terrorism has shifted from South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa to sub-Saharan Africa, especially the Sahel region,” the report said.

The full rankings of Arab countries in the 2023 GPI are: Qatar (21), Kuwait (35), Oman (48), Jordan (62), United Arab Emirates (75), Tunisia (81), Morocco (84), Algeria (96). , Bahrain (108), Djibouti (112), Mauritania (114), Saudi Arabia (119), Egypt (121), Palestine (134), Lebanon (135), Libya (137), Iraq (154), Sudan. (155), Somalia (156), Syria (161), and Yemen (162).