Ghana ranked second most peaceful African country, 40th globally – 2022 GPI report

Ghana has been ranked second most peaceful country in the sub-Saharan Africa region only behind the island nation of Mauritius.

This is according to the 2022 edition of the Global Peace Index, GPI, report released this week.

The country’s overall score was 1.759 as compared to 1.715 in 2021, the score also placed Ghana as the 40th most peaceful country on the global ranking of 163 countries.

The global rank means Ghana dropped two steps from the 38th spot in 2021. Per the 2021 global scores, Ghana is sandwiched between Kuwait and Albania.

Completing the top five most peaceful African countries are The Gambia (45th globally), Botswana (48th) and Sierra Leone (50th) in that order.

Ghana is currently dogged by an economic downturn that has seen government turn to the International Monetary Fund for an economic rescue programme. Government partly blame the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia Ukraine war.

Some of the security challenges that Ghana has faced in the past few months have been clashes between protesters and Police, with the most recent being the clash between Arise Ghana protesters and the Police in late June.

There is however a looming threat of terrorist violence being imported from across the Sahel, more so with neighbouring countries having recorded attacks in recent months.

As of last year, the report came out at amid rising insecurity with most citizens expressing grave concerns about rising insecurity following the murder of a bullion van police escort and a hawker in Jamestown plus a series of robbery incidents across the country.

About the GPI report

This is the 16th edition of the Global Peace Index (GPI), which ranks 163 independent states and territories according to their level of peacefulness.

Produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), the GPI is the world’s leading measure of global peacefulness. This report presents the most comprehensive data-driven analysis to-date on trends in peace, its economic value, and how to develop peaceful societies.

The GPI covers 163 countries comprising 99.7 per cent of the world’s population, using 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators from highly respected sources,
and measures the state of peace across three domains: the level of societal Safety and Security; the extent of Ongoing Domestic and International Conflict; and the degree of Militarisation.

In addition to discussing the findings from the 2022 GPI, the report includes an analysis of the military conflict in Ukraine. It covers likely increases in military spending, new and emerging uses of technology in the war, its impact on food prices and global shipping routes.

The report also contains a deeper analysis on violent demonstrations around the world.

This year’s results found that the average level of global peacefulness deteriorated by 0.3 per cent. Although slight, this is the eleventh deterioration in peacefulness in the last fourteen years, with 90 countries improving, 71 deteriorating and two remaining stable in peacefulness, highlighting that countries tend to deteriorate much faster than they improve.