The Global Peace Index put out yearly by the Institute for Economics and Peace shows peace declined in Madagascar during the past year. Madagascar was one of the five countries that showed the greatest decline as it dropped 26 places to 105th in the world. The other countries that showed the greatest decline were Libya, Bahrain, Egypt, and North Korea. The report described Madagascar as a “relatively peaceful state” prior to going into political crisis in 2009. Ever since, it has been in an acute economic crisis with high political instability. The report notes that both Amnesty International and the US State Department report rises in human rights violations from a relatively low level.
Madagascar Rank: 105
Change in score 2010-11: 0.220
Change in rank 2010-11: -26
Madagascar’s relatively peaceful state (it was ranked 40th in the GPI in 2007) came to an abrupt end in early 2009 when political tensions erupted into violence. Since the overthrow of the President, Marc Ravalomanana in March 2009 the country has been in deep political crisis, which intensified at times in 2010 and was accompanied by an increasingly acute economic crisis, exacerbated by international sanctions. The cumulative effect of the political instability of the past two years and growing economic difficulties and unemployment in 2010 led to a rise in several qualitative indicators, including perceptions of criminality, violent crime and the likelihood of violent demonstrations. The political scene was highly unstable throughout 2010, amid continued disagreement over dates for fresh presidential and parliamentary elections. The attempted coup by rebel military personnel on 17th November 2010, which was quelled within three days, prompted the slight rise in the score for this indicator. Both the Amnesty International Country Report (2009) and the US State Department Report on Human Rights in 2009 reported rises in human rights violations from a relatively low level that warranted a sharp increase in the Political Terror Scale to a score of 4.
The Global Peace Index is a project of the Institute for Economics and Peace. It represents a ground-breaking milestone in the study of peace. It is the first time that an Index has been created that ranks the nations of the world by their peacefulness and identifies some of the drivers of peace. The world’s leading measure of global peacefulness, the Global Peace Index gauges ongoing domestic and international conflict, safety and security in society, and militarization in 153 countries by taking into account 23 separate indicators.