Our Ref.SP/sp/05/232/51 May 27, 2008 . Mr.Clyde McConaghy President and CEO Global Peace Index (GPI) The Vision of Humanity PO Box 42 St Leonards, NSW 1590 Australia . Dear Mr. McConaghy: . COMMENTS ON YOUR GPI TOWARDS THAILAND . Recently, your organization released the GPI and Thailand was ranked at No.118 out of 140 countries. This implies that Thailand is less peaceful even than those countries with wars and unrests. This report is very questionable to me and would unfairly and negatively affect my country. Therefore, I write to prove to you that your report might be unreliable. . . Little Correlation in GPI Data . I may not be able to access your database to examine your methodology in detail; however, I have collected different variables which should affect the level of peace in a country and have carried out some analyses by using your GPI as the dependent variable. According to the regression analysis, none of the variables has a significant correlation with your GPI at all. Please see the following table for your information. . The computed R square of each independent variable to the GPI is obviously low. This simply implies that these variables should not be used to construct this GPI. In other words, the GPI computed might not be reliable. Please see the plots of some variables below where the correlation between the two variables cannot be traced. . . Revision of the Run . The following table attempts to simplify the run for the GPI by using the variables below such as Human Development Index, armed forces, foreign direct investment, consumer price index, poverty, suicide, homicide, gender equity and the like. . Each variable will be used to calculate the average value, which is assumed to be equal to 2, as in the Grade Point Average (GPA). Then the Grade is calculated. For example, in the case of the GPI, the average value is 2.02. The value of Thailand is 2.42. In this case countries which have a score close to 4 are less peaceful. Therefore, in the case of the GPA, the grade of Thailand in terms of GPI is 1.66. Please see Column H for the details of the calculation. . . In the grade Column, scores that are above 2 are better than those below 2 (as in the case of the GPA). Finally, on Line 20, 2.44 is the GPA of Thailand, resulting from the average of all variables without any weighting. This means that Thailand should be above the average rather than far below the average as appeared in the 2008 GPI. . . Contemporary Implication . There might be some phenomena that will create misunderstanding, and it is consequently unfair to interpret these with a negative image, for example: . - The 2006 coup might have temporarily destroyed our democratic image but it did not stop our country to further develop in democratic politics. . - The current political protests seem to be a disturbance. However, eventually these informal political movements will not be accepted by the public at large. . - The unrest in the deep south seems to be one major concern but limited to that particular area. Our foundation once estimated that during 2005 to 2007, the unrest caused the lost of US$ 1.63 billion in real estate value (//www.thaiappraisal.org/pdfNew/Research/research_2007-05-215-land.pdf) . There are also other indices which are different than you, for example, - The Global Corruption Index said Thailand was at No.63 out of 163 countries (//www.transparency.org/content/download/18692/255272) . - Thailand is the forth in the number of tourists in Asia Pacific in the 2007 report of the World Tourism Organization (//unwto.org/facts/eng/pdf/highlights/highlights_07_eng_lr.pdf)
- The Human Development Index of the UNDP indicated that Thailand was at No. 78 out of 177 countries (//hdrstats.undp.org/indicators) . Therefore, this report on the GPI with misinterpretation, will have a unfair and negative effect on our country. Please reconsider and kindly revise your report with more care and responsibility. I look forwards to receiving your kind response. . . Sincerely yours, Sopon Pornchokchai, Ph.D., MRICS President, Thai Appraisal Foundation
FULL ENGLISH LETTER TO THE VISION OF HUMANITY: //www.thaiappraisal.org/pdfNew/pdf_article/text_GPI.pdf มูลนิธิประเมินค่าทรัพย์สินแห่งประเทศไทย Knowledge Is Not Private Property
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