Steve Killelea, a self-described "conservative businessman and philanthropist," gave an excellent presentation on his brainchild, the Global Peace Index (GPI).  One day, Steve asked the question, what is it that makes nations peaceful? He found out no one really knew.  So he hired the Economist Intelligence Unit and funded an international panel of peace experts from Peace Institutes and Think Tanks as well as the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney, Australia to find out.  The GPI is the result of their efforts.  They weighed 24 indicators for 120 nations to do the study, which will be expanded over the next few years.  The U.S. was 96th out of 121 nations surveyed.  It's worth taking a look at.

Steve is a true citizen for global solutions.  He believes that:

“Peace and sustainability are the cornerstones of humanity’s survival in the 21st century. The major challenges facing humanity today are global – climate change, accessible fresh water, ever decreasing bio-diversity and over population. Problems that call for global solutions and these solutions will require co-operation on a global scale unparalleled in history. Peace is the essential prerequisite, for, without peace, how can the major nations of the world co-operate to solve these issues?”

Coming up Sources of Violent Conflict and Conflict Prevention in the 21st Century

Don Kraus