Sri Lanka ranks as failed state in global index

[TamilNet, Tuesday, 19 June 2007, 14:06 GMT]
Sri Lanka is on the ‘alert list’ of states that have failed, a leading peace think tank, the Fund for Peace (FfP) says. In a global ranking of 177 states, Sri Lanka was placed below Liberia and the Republic of the Congo, using data collected in the second half of 2006. Ffp says counties were ranked using 12 indicators covering “a wide range of state failure risk elements.” Sri Lanka scored particularly poorly on rankings titled: ‘Criminalisation or de-legitimisation of the state’ and ‘Security apparatus operating as a state within a state’, ‘rise of factionalised elites.’

Among the risk elements looked at by FfP are “extensive corruption and criminal behavior, inability to collect taxes or otherwise draw on citizen support, large-scale involuntary dislocation of the population, sharp economic decline, group-based inequality, institutionalized persecution or discrimination, severe demographic pressures, brain drain, and environmental decay.”

According to FfP, a state that is failing has several attributes, “one of the most common is the loss of physical control of its territory or a monopoly on the legitimate use of force.”

“Other attributes of state failure include the erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions, an inability to provide reasonable public services, and the inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community,” FfP says.

Sri Lanka was placed 25 in the global ranking, which begins with 1 (worst) and goes to 177.

The global ranking was topped by Norway, Finland and Sweden, in order. Sudan, Iraq and Somalia, in order, were at the bottom.

Chronology: