Data show Ethiopia as one of the five top national deteriorations in global & regional peace terms

Posted by The Ethiopia Observatory (TEO)
by Global Peace Index 2017
 

Change in score 2014/15: +0.193

Change in rank 2014/15: 16
 
A welcome development is the fact that this year’s biggest fallers deteriorated to a lesser extent than the worst performers in the last edition of the GPI; indeed this year’s top faller, Ethiopia, had a score change less than half of that of last year’s top faller, Yemen. The five worst-performing countries are all in the sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and North Africa regions.

Ethiopia’s score has suffered as a result of violent protests that led to a state of emergency giving the government significant powers to crack down on dissidents.

Ethiopia saw its score worsen by 0.193 and fell 16 places in the rankings to 134th.

The country suffered a major deterioration of peace reflecting the state of emergency introduced in October 2016, which was originally intended to put a stop to nearly a year of protest-related violence.

This state of emergency has given the government significant powers such as the ability to impose curfews, suspend due process, and use the military to suppress protests.

Ethiopia’s score worsened the most in the domain of Ongoing Domestic and International Conflict, as evidenced by deteriorations in the indicators of intensity of organised internal conflict, number and duration of internal conflicts, and number of deaths from internal conflict.

However, in order to address the turbulent domestic environment, the government has strengthened its military, leading to a deterioration (albeit much milder) in the score for military expenditure as a percentage of GDP.

Ethiopia’s most-improved indicator was the number, duration and role in external conflicts, as it has drawn down its involvement in neighbouring Somalia, although further instability in that country as well as in South Sudan poses the risk of a deterioration in the external environment as well.

Of the indicators that deteriorated, the largest deterioration occurred for the level of internal conflicts fought indicator, where the average country score deteriorated by 7.3 per cent.

The impact of the Ethiopia has also affected the score for Sub-Saharan Africa.

The four ‘top fallers’, along with Ethiopia, are: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Libya, Saudi Arabia & The Gambia.
 

Tags: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denial of civil and human rights, Deteriorations in peace, ethiopia, global peace index (GPI), Libya, Nations suffering the largest fall, Saudi Arabia, state violence, The Gambia, TPLF martial law