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Pakistan tenth on ‘failed states’ list

* Somalia, Zimbabwe and Chad top the global index

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: Pakistan, split down the middle with terrorist attacks and facing an economic crisis, remains among the top 10 failed states, according to an index prepared by the Foreign Policy Journal.

Placed ninth among all countries last year in terms of its overall achievement, Pakistan’s position has improved only by one notch - it is placed 10th in the index for 2009 published in the July-August issue of the journal.

The annual exercise, now in its fifth year, is carried out by the journal and the Fund for Peace, an independent research organisation.

The ranking is decided on the basis of the following factors: demographic pressure, refugees/internally displaced persons (IDPs), group grievance, uneven development, economic decline, delegitimisation of the state, public service, human rights, factionalised elites and external intervention.

The top 10 failed states on the latest list are: Somalia, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Guinea and Pakistan.

Neighbouring India is placed 87th among the 177 countries under study, with its score showing an improvement over the previous year. But others in the region are not faring any better. Sri Lanka is placed 12th, Bangladesh 19th and Nepal 25th.

At the other end of the spectrum, the bottom 10 in the list are the top achievers: Norway, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Ireland, Denmark, New Zealand, Australia and the Netherlands.

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