Global Violent Deaths (GVD)
The Small Arms Survey tracks statistics on violent deaths and compiles them in its Global Violent Deaths (GVD) database.
Within the framework of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), states have pledged to ‘promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels’ (SDG 16). The first target identified under this goal, Target 16.1, commits all states to ‘significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere'.
The GVD database, updated annually, provides a tool for assessing progress in implementing Target 16.1. It contains data starting from 2004 and includes datasets on direct conflict deaths, homicides, killings during legal interventions, and violent deaths by firearms—including the prevalence of firearms-related killings of women, as well as figures for women victims of lethal violence more generally.
The database has served as the backbone for a series of outputs and publications, including:
- Broken Ambitions: The Global Struggle to Halve Violent Deaths by 2030. Briefing Paper. November 2024.
- An infographic on how sex, firearms, and homicidal violence are interlinked. June 2024.
- Turning Tides: A New Surge in Global Violent Deaths. Blog Post, December 2023.
- A snapshot of the data—up to 2021—in this infographic. December 2023.
- The calm before the storm: Global Violent Deaths update 2019–2020. Blog Post, July 2022.
- Visit our Resource Library for more GVD outputs.
The full database can be found here. See also: ReadMe file
Download the database extract (Excel) or navigate our interactive map below for a quick overview of country-by-country numbers.