Duncan Green

Strategic adviser for Oxfam GB and author of ‘From Poverty to Power’

Steve Killelea is an intriguing man, an Aussie software millionaire who, in the words of his bio ‘decided to dedicate most of his time and fortune to sustainable development and peace’.  Think a more weather-beaten Bill Gates. He also (full disclosure) bought me a very nice lunch last week.

In pursuit of this aim he set up the Institute for Economics and Peace in 2007. The institute dedicates itself to measuring the hard stuff – ‘developing metrics to analyse peace and to quantify its economic value.’ It puts these measurements into the public domain through four flagship annual reports:

The Economic Value of Peace: e.g. ‘The total economic impact of violence to the world economy in 2015 was estimated to be $13.6 trillion and is expressed in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms. This is equivalent to 13.3 per cent of world GDP or $1,876 PPP per annum, per person.’

The Global Terrorism Index: e.g. ‘There was a ten per cent decline from 2014 in the number of terrorism deaths in 2015 resulting in 3,389 fewer people being killed. Iraq and Nigeria together recorded 5,556 fewer deaths and 1,030 fewer attacks than in 2014. However, with a global total of 29,376 deaths, 2015 was still the second deadliest year on record.’

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