Gabe Hau, District 9800 Peacebuilding Committee Chair was the guest speaker last week. His presentation centered around “Peace as a universal concept” stating that we all want peace, even if our definition of peace may differ. Rotary projects have directly or indirectly helped build peace within the communities in which they have been delivered. Some examples of peace projects include School Peace Essay competitions (Rotary Wyndham Harbour), erecting Peace Poles, participating in the Rotary Peace Fellowship Program, Youth Exchange, and many others.Rotary International became involved with the Global Peace Index (GPI) through a strategic partnership with the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP), the independent, nonpartisan Australia-based think tank, creators of the index. Rotary International has "peacebuilding and conflict prevention" as one of its seven Areas of Focus, making the partnership a natural fit to advance this mission. This partnership began after IEP's founder, Steve Killelea, was invited to speak at a Rotary peace symposium in 2015. As a result, Rotary gained a new way to support peacebuilding efforts by using IEP's data-driven research to train its members in community-level conflict prevention and to work on promoting "Positive Peace". 
The GPI is an annual report that measures the relative level of peacefulness of 163 countries and territories. It uses 23 qualitative and quantitative data to assess peace across three key domains: Societal Safety and Security: Measures factors like crime rates and political instability; Ongoing Domestic and International Conflict: Assesses levels of internal and external conflict; Militarization: Looks at factors like military spending and armed services personnel.
The main GPI findings include:
- The average level of global peacefulness deteriorated by 0.56 per cent with 65 countries improving and 97 deteriorating in peacefulness. The conflict in Gaza and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine were the primary drivers of the fall in peacefulness.
- On the score of global peacefulness, Australia is ranked 18th showing strengths in societal safety and security and the management of ongoing domestic and international conflicts but the global trend of increased militarisation affected Australia, leading to a lower score in that specific category.
- Iceland remains the most peaceful country in the world. It is joined at the top of the index by Ireland, Austria, New Zealand, and Singapore. Yemen is the least peaceful country in the world followed by Sudan, South Sudan, Afghanistan, and Ukraine.
- Conflicts are also becoming more internationalised, with 92 countries now engaged in a conflict beyond their borders.
- Although the measures of militarisation had been improving, the trend has now reversed with militarisation deteriorating in 108 countries. Among the major military powers, China has seen the most significant increase in military capability.
- The economic impact of violence on the global economy in 2023 was $19.1 trillion in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms. This figure is equivalent to 13.5 per cent of the world’s economic activity (gross world product) or $2,380 per person.