Global Terrorism Index by MENA Country
MENA countries differ greatly in their levels of development and hence in the needs of their populations. A first group of MENA countries is constituted by highly unstable regions such as Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, Libya, Palestine, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. In these areas, regaining stability and security is the utmost priority.
Country averages in the MENA region, where data are available, is 5.8. The highest scores are those of the UAE (7.3), followed by Israel (7.0). Nevertheless, all scores remain much lower than the highest score worldwide (8.5) (Clifton 2012).
Similarly, the rankings of 85 countries in the World Happiness Report of 2013 indicated that people in the MENA region generally experienced low levels of happiness. Some exceptions were Israel, which ranked 11th, followed by the UAE(14th) and some of the small Gulf countries; Oman (23rd), Qatar (27th), Kuwait (32nd) and Saudi Arabia (33rd). Bahrain (79th) and Libya (78th) fell in the quartile of low-happiness countries.
Using the Fragile States Index 2014,7 countries are ranked into 11 groups, ranging from “very high alert” to “very sustainable.” Sudan is in the “high alert” category; three MENA countries (Yemen, Iraq, and Syria) are also in the “high alert” group; Egypt is in the “alert” group; Libya, Iran, and Lebanon are in the “very high warning” group; Israel, Algeria, Tunisia, Jordan, Morocco, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia in the “high warning” group; Bahrain is in the “warning” group; Kuwait and Oman are in the* group; and Qatar and the UAE are in the “stable” group. None of MENA countries is found in the “very stable” category.
Using the Corruption Perceptions Index, which ranks countries and territories on how corrupt their public sector is perceived to be (on a scale of 0–100, where 0 = highly corrupt; 100 = very clean), data show that the UAE (69), Qatar (68), Israel (61), and Turkey (50) are the least corrupt in the region. The most corrupt are Sudan (11), Libya (15), Iraq (16), and Syria (17)
