Each year since 2007, the Institute for Economics and Peace has held a mirror to the world's capacity for coexistence, and in 2026 that mirror returned its darkest reflection yet. Across 163 nations, the conditions for peace have eroded to their lowest recorded point, with 63 active state-based conflicts claiming 181,000 lives in a single year and displacing 117 million souls from their homes. The cost of this collective failure now reaches $21.8 trillion annually — a sum that speaks not only to treasure spent on violence, but to the imagination and will that might otherwise have been turned t
Global Peace at Historic Low as Conflicts, Deaths Surge, IEP Report Warns
181,000 conflict deaths recorded in 2025, with 117 million people displaced and 100 countries experiencing average 23% increases in refugee and IDP economic impacts.