Fragile States Index 2024

The Fragile States Index is a report released annually by the Fund for Peace and the magazine Foreign Policy since 2005. The primary purpose of this report is to assess the vulnerability of sovereign states throughout the nation. All sovereign states that are members of the United Nations are included in the report when enough data is available with the exception of Taiwan, Kosovo, Western Sahara, Northern Cyprus, and the Palestinian Territories.

The report uses indicators across four categories to determine if a state is vulnerable to conflict or collapse. The categories that are assessed include: Cohesion, Economic, Political, and Social. There are 12 different indicators used to determine the vulnerability of the states. These factors include human rights, public services, demographic pressures, refugees and internally displaced persons, and security. The higher a state is ranked on the list, the more vulnerable it is. According to the 2023 Fragile States Index, Somalia was the most vulnerable with a score of 111.9. Immediately behind were the state of Yemen with a score of 108.9 and South Sudan with the score of 108.5.

The top 10 most vulnerable states in the 2023 Index included:

On the flip side, states with the lowest scores were found to be the least vulnerable and less at risk for conflict or collapse. The top state based on the 2023 Index was Norway with a score of 14.5. Iceland came in second place with a score of 15.7, while Finland came in third with a score of 16.

The states that appear at the bottom of the Index of 2023 and are thus less vulnerable to conflict or collapse include: