Creating a database of violent deaths to improve global decision-making

It is not known exactly how many people die violently each year. A common estimate is ‘over 500,000’, but the data are poor in many countries. Through the Sustainable Development Goals, the world has committed to ‘Significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere’ by 2030.

On a global level, the number of violent deaths reflects how peaceful (or not) the world is. On a regional, national and local level, understanding where, how and why these deaths occur can inform governments and international organisations on their policies and prevention strategies.

In order to do this, we need the data. The problem is that the current data reporting and monitoring systems are not sufficient. SIPRI’s Global Registry of Violent Deaths (GReVD) hopes to remedy this.