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Background

The International Baccalaureate (IB) has partnered with the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) to review the current IB Economics course with a view to integrate peace into the curriculum. The goal is to align the course more closely with the IB mission of developing internationally minded people who contribute to a better and more peaceful world.

Purpose: Align IB Economics with the IB mission to develop internationally minded people who help create a better and more peaceful world.

Approach: Integrate peace and conflict as contextual applications of economic concepts throughout the course rather than adding supplementary content.

Result: Maintains full economic rigor while demonstrating that economics already explains the institutional systems determining societal stability.

About the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP)​

The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank dedicated to shifting the world’s focus to peace as a positive, achievable, and tangible measure of human well-being and progress. Founded in 2008, IEP achieves its goals by developing new conceptual frameworks to define peacefulness; providing metrics for measuring peace; ascribing an economic value to changes in peace; and uncovering the relationships between business, peace and prosperity as well as promoting a better understanding of the cultural, economic, and political factors that create peace. IEP supports its activities through consulting services, donations, training and licencing fees. IEP has offices in New York, Brussels, the Hague, Mexico City and Nairobi and is headquartered in Sydney, Australia. It has Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) status research institute under Australian tax law and also a 501(c)(3) charitable status entity in the United States.

IEP is best known for its work in producing world renowned composite indices which are released annually, in the following four core reports:

  • Global Peace Index: A ranking of 163 countries on their levels of peacefulness, as defined as the absence of violence and fear of violence. The GPI is considered the world’s leading measure of international peacefulness. It has raised significant awareness about the drivers and indicators of peace and has become a valued resource used by academics, intergovernmental organisations and governments around the world. It is now referenced in over 8,000 books.

  • Global Terrorism Index: A ranking of 163 countries on the impact of terrorism.

  • Positive Peace Index: A ranking of 163 countries on their levels of Positive Peace, defined as the attitudes, institutions and structures that create and sustain peaceful societies.

  • Ecological Threat Report: A comparison of over 3,000 administrative subnational regions on the impact of ecological threats (including water stress, food security, impact of natural events and population growth) now and into the future. IEP is also well versed in writing and presenting data driven peace, conflict and development tools in neutral ways that respect the political sensitivities of the intended use and audience.

The research outputs of the Institute have been featured in leading media internationally, from the New York Times, the Guardian, FoxNews, the Economist, Huffington Post, Washington Post, CNN, and BBC and are widely cited by intergovernmental organisations and in academia.

IEP maintains extensive partnerships with leading academic institutions and think tanks across peace and conflict studies, terrorism studies, development studies, economics, and political science. Its staff have collaborated with, and consulted for, a wide range of private research organisations and intergovernmental bodies, including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank, the Economist Intelligence Unit, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), the Oxford Multidimensional Poverty Index Initiative (OPHI), and the Commonwealth Secretariat.