Countries by Global Terrorism Index Rating

As the 20th Century has given way to the New Millennium, terrorism has remained on the rise in a diverse range of countries around the world. Record numbers of people have died in terrorist attacks over the past couple of years. If we look back in time, only 3,329 terrorism related death occurred back in 2000, but over the course of less than a decade and a half the number had risen to 32,658 deaths in 2014, an almost tenfold increase.

Measuring the Effects of Terrorism

In order to accurately account for the number of deaths that occurred in 2017 directly attributable to terrorist attacks, an in-depth statistical analysis was performed by The Institute of Economics and Peace. This annual report gives us a Global Terrorism Index, by which we can compare the effects of terrorism on different countries across different years.

Review of the Most Recent Global Terrorism Index

The 2017 Global Terrorism Index has rated countries around the world based on the prevailing trends of peace and terror within these countries. For residents there, one alarming generality that jumps about the Global Terrorism Index results is that it outlines concentrated areas of terror within the Middle East, Asian, and Africa as being most affected by terrorist attacks. The top 5 from among the list are Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Syria, and Pakistan. It is believed that nearly 78 percent of global terrorism-related deaths occurred in these five countries alone, further emphasizing the alarming domestic situations in these places.

Lowest Listed Scorers Still Affected by Terrorism

Our Global Terrorism Index list provides details about all countries making the top 50 countries affected by terrorism. On our top 50 list of countries it should be noted that those most ‘at peace’ include Uganda at 4.319, Greece at 4.139, South Africa at 4.092, the Republic of the Congo at 4.04, and Algeria at 3.97. This means that their respective indices were still 3-4 times the minimum terror level, so terrorism in these countries is still a very real threat even in these 46th-50th positions.

Tackling Terrorism

According to the IEP, the number of people who have died due to terrorism attacks since the start of the century has increased almost ten-fold. Many of the countries that have been inflicted by terrorism the most have also faced foreign military intervention and conflicts that may make their domestic security situations even worse than that reflected by the terror index. With such a rapid increase in instances of terrorism, it is becoming ever more necessary for policymakers to rethink how anti-terrorism strategies are to be planned and carried out, with ultimate goals of peace, security, and conflict resolution.