Morocco is slowly but surely becoming one of the most peaceful countries in the MENA region. Based on a range of statistics provided by the 11th edition of the Global Peace Index, the Kingdom made progress when it comes to peace and prosperity. Climbing 16 places in the global scale, the North African country is ranked as one of the medium nations with a score of 2,004 and succeeding all of Algeria109th, Mauritania 128, and Libya 157th.
The annual report put together by the Institute for Economics and Peace, an independent and non-profit think tank that works on measuring the well being and progress of 163 countries, was topped by Iceland 1st. the ranking was then followed by New Zealand 2nd, Portugal 3rd Austria 4th and Denmark 5th. For Arab nation, Qatar 30th made it to the high ranked list of the list.
Morocco the 6th most peaceful country in the MENA region
According to the authors of the international survey, Morocco «continues to benefit from a broader degree of political and social stability than most of its neighbors in North Africa». Indeed the kingdom is ranked as the 6th most peaceful country in the MENA region leaving its neighbor Algeria behind 8th. It also «recorded the highest improvement, driven by lower levels of militarization», ranked 4th in the region with a score of 1,780.
For the rest of the region, other nations like Saudi Arabia and Libya decreased their annual score when it comes to peacefulness as «tensions between Qatar and some fellow Gulf Arab states—namely Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain—have eased noticeably, following moves by Qatar to curb some of its visible support in the region for Islamist groups (including the Muslim Brotherhood)», the report indicates. The survey points out that the Middle East and North Africa is still the least peaceful region in the world due to the political conflicts taking part in different nations like Yemen Syria, Iraq and Libya.