Every year, Foreign Policy Magazine releases a Failed State Index that aggregates data from numerous sources and ranks 178 countries based on 12 social, economic and political/military indicators.

This year’s 2014 index, renamed “Fragile State Index” instead of “Failed State Index,” provides data for countries around the world on indicators ranging from “refugees and internally displaced persons” to “poverty and economic decline” and “state legitimacy.”

States are given a score from zero to 10, with 10 being the worst and zero being the best, on each index. Scores are compiled from documents from news sources, international organization reports and country-specific data releases that are then filtered for key words and sifted through to provide accurate information on the state of each country.

Taking a look at the Poverty and Economic Decline (PED) indicator, which measures the poverty rates as well economic performance of a country, it was unsurprising, although disheartening, to find that six of the top 10 countries with the highest PED scores come from Africa. All of the top 10 are developing countries.

Coming in with the worst PED scores (highest) was Haiti (9.4,) followed by Somalia (9.1,) Yemen (9.1) and North Korea (9.0) respectively. Haiti ranks number nine overall in the Fragile State ranks, although Somalia outranks it at number two.

Even a cursory glance at the data from the Fragile State Index shows that the majority of developing countries in the Southern region of Africa still lag significantly behind the developed North.

The first six of the top 10 most fragile states are African countries (South Sudan, Somalia, Central African Republic, Congo, Sudan and Chad,) while the remaining four are from the Middle East and Caribbean (Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan and Haiti.) Many of these states have been embroiled by violence, long-term conflict, lack of economic growth and corruption.

Addressing the needs of the people in these countries is the purpose of the Millennium Development Goals and the future Sustainable Development Goals. And while significant progress worldwide has been made in the fight against poverty, there are still many factors that inhibit a country’s ability to move out of the “Fragile” rank to one that is secure and stable.

Data like that provided by Foreign Policy is useful for people around the world when deciding what programs to fund and what policies to advocate for. It not only demonstrates where the need is greatest, but also how different points like poverty and economic decline are connected to concerns like state legitimacy, security and levels of foreign intervention or assistance.

– Andrea Blinkhorn

Sources: FFP 1, FFP 2, Foreign Policy, Fragile States
Photo: Rashmee