Finland is the most stable country in the world, according to a new report just released by the Washington D. C. -based non-profit organization, Fund for Peace.
The Fragile States Index 2014 is an annual ranking of 178 countries based on scores developed from twelve key political, social, economic and military indicators and over 100 sub-indicators.
The report places Finland alone in its top category: Very Sustainable. The Nordic nation scored an average of 18.7 on all 12 major measures.
The Fund for Peace has produced its Fragile States Index for the past 10 years because it believes that weak and failing states pose challenges to the world. It maintains that the highly globalized economy, information systems and integrated security can be affected by just one fragile state.
Just one notch below the top Very Sustainable category is the Sustainable category, which includes in descending order Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, New Zealand, Luxembourg, Iceland, Australia, Canada, Austria and the Netherlands.
The United States falls into the next category tier: Very Stable. This category also includes Germany, Belgium, Slovenia, Portugal, the United Kingdom, France, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Uruguay and the Czech Republic.
Which countries are failing and should be avoided? The Very High Alert category lists those nations most in turmoil, reflected by their very high scores. South Sudan scores an average of 112.9 on the Index, the highest average score of all 178 countries ranked.
Right behind South Sudan in the Very High Alert category are Somalia, the Central African Republic, Congo (D.R.) and Sudan.
The High Alert category also contains very unstable countries: Chad, Afghanistan, Yemen, Haiti, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Guinea, Iraq, Cote d’Ivoire, Syria and Guinea Bissau.
The report also points out those countries that have made significant progress in improving stability over the 10-year study period.
Bosnia & Herzegovina improved most over the last decade, followed by Indonesia, Serbia, Dominican Republic, Cuba and Russia, all showing significant improvement.
