The Fragile States Index is an annual ranking of 178 nations based on their levels of stability and the pressures they face. The Index is based on The Fund for Peace’s proprietary Conflict Assessment System Tool (CAST) analytical platform. Based on comprehensive social science methodology, data from three primary sources is triangulated and subjected to critical review to obtain final scores for the Fragile States Index.
Millions of documents are analyzed every year, and by applying highly specialized search parameters, scores are apportioned for every country based on twelve key political, social and economic indicators and over 100 subindicators that are the result of years of painstaking expert social science research.
The 2016 Fragile States Index, the 12th edition of the annual Index, comprises data collected between January 1, 2015 and December 31, 2015 — thus, certain well publicized events that have occurred since January 1, 2016 are not covered by the 2016 Index.