Palestine

The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) is constructed through the calculation and aggregation of 20 indicators reflecting national-level environmental data. These indicators are combined into nine issue categories, each of which fit under one of two overarching objectives. The two objectives that provide the overarching structure of the EPI are Environmental Health and Ecosystem Vitality. Environmental Health measures the protection of human health from environmental harm. Ecosystem Vitality measures ecosystem protection and resource management. These two objectives are further divided into nine issue categories that span high-priority environmental policy issues, including air quality, forests, fisheries, and climate and energy, among others. The issue categories are extensive but not comprehensive. Underlying the nine issue categories are 20 indicators calculated from country-level data and statistics. After more than 15 years of work on environmental performance measurement and six iterations of the EPI, global data are still lacking on a number of key environmental issues. These include: freshwater quality, toxic chemical exposures, municipal solid waste management, nuclear safety, wetlands loss, agricultural soil quality and degradation, recycling rates, adaptation, vulnerability, and resiliency to climate change, desertification.

Freedom in the World is Freedom House’s flagship annual report, assessing the condition of political rights and civil liberties around the world. It is composed of numerical ratings and supporting descriptive texts for 195 countries and 15 territories. Freedom in the World has been published since 1973, allowing Freedom House to track global trends in freedom over more than 40 years. It has become the most widely read and cited report of its kind, used on a regular basis by policymakers, journalists, academics, activists, and many others.

The GID-DB is a database providing researchers and policymakers with key data on gender-based discrimination in social institutions. This data helps analyse women’s economic empowerment and understand gender gaps in other key areas of development. Covering 160 countries, the GID-DB contains comprehensive information on legal, cultural and traditional practices that discriminate against women and girls.

The aim of this data set is to provide a snapshot of where countries stand in their cybersecurity engagement at the national level. The visions as seen by ABI Research and ITU is to promote cybersecurity awareness and the important role governments have to play in integrating appropriate mechanisms to both support and promote this crucial discipline. Safeguarding the integrity of cyberspace must involve the development of cybersecurity.

The GEM Adult Population Survey (APS) measures the level and nature of entrepreneurial activity around the world. It is administered to a representative national sample of at least 2000 respondents.The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor is the world's foremost study of entrepreneurship. Through a vast, centrally coordinated, internationally executed data collection effort, GEM is able to provide high quality information, comprehensive reports and interesting stories, to enhance the understanding of the entrepreneurial phenomenon.  

The GEM National Expert Survey (NES) monitors the factors that are believed to have a significant impact on entrepreneurship, known as the Entrepreneurial Framework Conditions (EFCs). It is administered to a minimum of 36 carefully chosen 'experts' in each country. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor is the world's foremost study of entrepreneurship. Through a vast, centrally coordinated, internationally executed data collection effort, GEM is able to provide high quality information, comprehensive reports and interesting stories, to enhance the understanding of the entrepreneurial phenomenon.

The Global Innovation Index (GII) aims to capture the multi-dimensional facets of innovation and provide the tools that can assist in tailoring policies to promote long-term output growth, improved productivity, and job growth. The GII helps to create an environment in which innovation factors are continually evaluated. It provides a key tool and a rich database of detailed metrics for 141 economies this year, which represent 95.1% of the world’s population and 98.6% of global GDP.

The 2016 Global Peace Index overall score deteriorated slightly compared with 2015, and at a faster rate than the previous year. Once again, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) was the region that saw its levels of peace deteriorate the most. Four regions scored worse than the previous year, while three other regions improved and two remained the same.

The Human Development Report presents a wealth of statistical information on different aspects of human development

Levels of restrictions on religionGovernment Restrictions IndexVery high- 6.6 to 10.0High- 4.5 to 6.5Moderate - 2.4 to 4.4Low- 0.0 to 2.3Social Hostilities IndexVery high- 7.2 to 10.0High- 3.6 to 7.1Moderate- 1.5 to 3.5Low- 0.0 to 1.4

Doing Business 2016: Measuring Regulatory Quality and Efficiency, a World Bank Group flagship publication, is the 13th in a series of annual reports measuring the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. Doing Businesspresents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 189 economies—from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe—and over time. Doing Business measures regulations affecting 11 areas of the life of a business. Ten of these areas are included in this year’s ranking on the ease of doing business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. Doing Business also measures labor market regulation, which is not included in this year’s ranking. Data in Doing Business 2016 are current as of June 1, 2015. The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms of business regulation have worked, where and why. This year’s Doing Business report continues a two-year process of introducing improvements in 8 of 10 Doing Business indicator sets—to complement the emphasis on the efficiency of regulation with a greater focus on its quality.  Main Findings  Doing Business 2016: Measuring Regulatory Quality and Efficiency finds that entrepreneurs in 122 economies saw improvements in their local regulatory framework last year. Between June 2014 and June 2015, the report, which measures 189 economies worldwide, documented 231 business reforms. Among reforms to reduce the complexity and cost of regulatory processes, those in the area of starting a business were the most common in 2014/15, as in the previous year. The next most common were reforms in the areas of paying taxes, getting electricity and registering property. Read about business reforms. Costa Rica, Uganda, Kenya, Cyprus, Mauritania, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Jamaica, Senegal and Benin are among the economies that improved the most in 2014/2015 in areas tracked by Doing Business. Together, these 10 top improvers implemented 39 regulatory reforms making it easier to do business. Sub-Saharan Africa alone accounted for about 30% of the regulatory reforms making it easier to do business in 2014/15, followed closely by Europe and Central Asia. Members of the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa were particularly active: 14 of the 17 economies implemented business regulation reforms in the past year—29 in total. Twenty-four of these reforms reduced the complexity and cost of regulatory processes, while the other five strengthened legal institutions. This year’s report adds indicators of quality to four indicator sets: registering property, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity and enforcing contracts. In addition, the trading across borders indicators have been revised to increase their relevance. The underlying case study now focuses on the top export product for each economy, on a very common manufactured product (auto parts) as its import product and on its largest trading partner for the export and import products. Seven case studies featured in the report: Five focus on legal and regulatory features covered by new or expanded indicators being introduced this year—in the areas of dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, trading across borders and enforcing contracts. The other two analyze other areas of interest in the historical data set. See all case studies.

The press freedom index that Reporters Without Borders publishes every year measures the level of freedom of information in nearly 180 countries. It reflects the degree of freedom that journalists, news organizations and netizens enjoy in each country, and the efforts made by the authorities to respect and ensure respect for this freedom. It is based partly on a questionnaire that is sent to our partner organizations (18 freedom of expression NGOs located in all five continents), to our network of 150 correspondents, and to journalists, researchers, jurists and human rights activists. The 179 countries ranked in this year’s index are those for which Reporters Without Borders received completed questionnaires from various sources. Some countries were not included because of a lack of reliable, confirmed data. A score and a position are assigned to each country in the final ranking. They are complementary indicators that together assess the state of press freedom. In order to make the index more informative and make it easier to compare different years, scores will henceforth range from 0 to 100, with 0 being the best possible score and 100 the worst. The index reflects the situation during a specific period. This year’s index is based solely on events between the start of December 2012 and the end of November 2013. It does not look at human rights violations in general, just violations of freedom of information. The index should in no way be taken as an indication of the quality of the media in the countries concerned.