While the Global Peace Index (GPI) is organised by The Institute for Economics & Peace, the data is gathered by a company called The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU); a private research company owned by The Economist newspaper. The EIU, along with some additional academics and experts in the field of peace (the GPI 'Panel of Experts'), is tasked with collating the data and statistics, which comes from a variety of Government's and non-governmental NGO's, and with awarding the correct scores to each of the 144 countries which are listed.

The Global Peace Index (GPI) is a numerical measure of how at peace a country is with itself, and with other countries. The overall GPI score is derived from measuring a set of 23 primary indicators in three key areas; (1) measures of ongoing domestic and international conflict, (2) measures of safety and security in society and (3) measures of militarization. 60% of the overall score is derived from a nations 'internal peace', and 40% from it's 'external peace'.

But, this list of indicators is by no means exhaustive, because it is only comprised of data that is both available across the listed countries from sources which are considered 'credible' by the EIU & GPI expert panel, and are considered comparable and consistent in measurement. You can view the latest Global Peace Index report here (pdf file/64 pages), and it includes a full list of primary indicators, secondary drivers, and some additional information about how they measure GPI scores.

The biggest criticisms related to the GPI surrounds the lack of indicators specifically relating to violence against women and children. Two problems in particular relate to the non-inclusion of precise figures for both Female Genital Mutilation in some African countries, and female infanticide in China. Other criticisms relate to 'The Economist' being so heavily involved in putting this chart together, possibly ensuring that western powers get as best a score as possible. The fact that the United States - with wars it began having possibly killed millions in the past decade, it's massive military budget compared to GDP/population, huge exports of military equipment and it's enormous violent crime rates - still remains as low as No.62, could indeed point to that.

This index has some holes which will need to be filled in future versions, but it does atleast get people talking about peace, and about the issues which make up the 23 Primary Indicators within this chart. So in that sense, it has indeed achieved the expressed goal of it's founder, Australian philanthropist Steve Killelea; to be a wake-up call for leaders around the globe. His aim was to make our elected leaders think about which nations they are doing business with, and in it's three short years so far, it has done that to some extent, and particularly on it's yearly release, it has also got the mainstream media talking about issues which are included in it, and some others which should also be.