The cost of violence on the economy
The latest Global Peace Index report has found that 2016 was a bad year for international peace and security. It recorded a further deterioration in global peace based on historic trends. 2016 witnessed the highest number of global deaths caused by violence for 25 years, persistently high levels of terrorism, and the highest number of refugees and displaced people since World War II.
Violence had a huge cost. The report found that the economic impact of ferocity to the global economy was $13.6 trillion in 2015 in terms of purchasing power parity. This is equivalent to $5 per day for every person on the planet, or 11 times the size of global foreign direct investment.
Violence incurs and obvious impact on society: not only are their human costs, there are financial costs to consider as well. The institute for economics and peace's stated goal is to quantify these types of incidents in order to find out the economic costs. It is important to see what segments are affected the most. This is how respective societies and governments in particular can devise their spending on containing violence.
Violence does not only have a significant impact on the cost of lives and emotions of the people involved, either as victims or portrayers, but also has a wide and devastating cost on economies. The monetary factor of preventing and containing violence is a vital part of understanding the overall economic cost of conflict, it may also be considered as an unnecessary means of conflict prevention as other, and cheaper alternatives exist, namely, diplomacy, and can be utilized just as effectively in preventing and resolving violence.
The $13.6 trillion of expenditures and losses represent 13.3% of world GDP. To break this figure down, it’s the equivalent of $1,876 for every person on the planet. The numbers refer to the current expenditures and their estimated flow-on effects in 2015, and are represented in PPP international dollars.
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