Sri Lanka has climbed 30 places in the Global Peace Index (GPI) 2026 to rank 67th out of 163 countries, becoming the second most peaceful nation in South Asia after Bhutan and recording the region’s largest percentage improvement, the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP) said in its 20th annual report.
Sri Lanka’s overall score improved by 2.3 percent over the past year. The advance was driven primarily by the Militarisation domain, which registered a 6.4 percent improvement alongside a 40.8 percent gain in the UN peacekeeping funding indicator. The Safety and Security domain improved 1.8 percent, anchored by a 25 percent reduction in political instability. The country ranked 97th in the GPI 2025.
The progress runs counter to the broader global trend. Overall world peacefulness deteriorated 0.7 percent in the past year, the 12th consecutive year of decline. The 2026 GPI finds the world became less peaceful for the 15th time in the past 18 years, with 99 countries recording a fall versus 62 that improved. The IEP says conflict has been the primary driver of the long-run decline, and 119 countries are now less peaceful than they were in 2008, the year the GPI was first published.
The data cutoff for most indicators is December 2025, meaning the impact of the Iran war and the US strikes on Iranian targets in May and June is not captured in this year’s edition. Neighbouring country relations indicators have been updated to the end of March 2026.
The IEP’s domestic improvement metrics align with security trends covered by the Defence Secretary’s Moscow remarks on the Indian Ocean as a “zone of peace” and the government’s reduced internal security posture since 2022.
Source: Daily Mirror.
