The World Happiness Report is an assessment and analysis of countries with regards to public policies and well-being. While no one can exactly denote the level of “happiness” of a person let alone a nation, there are set criteria used for compiling this report. It is a general overview of the quality of life in various countries of the world, thus the compilation of the world’s happiest countries and ‘less happy’ countries over a period of time.
Lately, the UAE surprised citizens and the world in the recent cabinet reshuffle where they invented ministries of “happiness” and “tolerance”. Such are the positive results that are inspired by the World Happiness Reports – they are made to inform policymaking in nations of the world bearing in mind that happiness “of the people” is the key as well as the target of development. If you want a happy country, make the people happy and the cycle keeps going; patriotism will not be an issue.
According to the 2015(most current) world happiness report, “happiness helps us live longer, healthier, and more productive lives, and cultivating that emotion early in life is key”. The report which takes scientific, psychological, economic and analytic minds to be feasible takes into consideration these factors: Income Rates; Living Conditions; Mental Health (ruling mindset); Employment Rates; and Stability of family life.
Tourism is doomed if the nation in question has public policies that favour the people and gives room to a certain level of freedom and accommodation. With the UAE still in the spotlight for having a high tourist patronage and beauties worth seeing (20th on the list), the world report helps nations who are interested in improving the people’s well-being and also in making their countries a place where everybody wants to be, see what and where they are going wrong.
Sadly, no African country been able to make the list of happy countries in a long while and this is quite unfortunate. Much of this stems from the perils caused by a myriad of corrupt leaders who prefer to live lavishly at the expense of their citizens despite the abundance of natural resource deposits in the African continent.
List of Happiest Countries
10. Australia
Happiness Rate: 7.284
9. New Zealand
Happiness Rate: 7.286
8. Sweden
Happiness Rate: 7. 364
7. Netherlands
Happiness Rate: 7. 378
6. Finland
Happiness Rate: 7.406
5. Canada
Happiness Rate: 7. 427
4. Norway
Happiness Rate: 7. 522
3. Denmark
Happiness Rate: 7. 527
2. Iceland
Happiness Rate: 7. 561
1. Switzerland
Happiness Rate: 7. 587
Unhappy Countries On The Reverse:
In life, there are usually negatives that accompany positives. There is the other side of the coin. As you have seen the list of happiest countries with happy people, there are also countries that are not so happy as well. Most of these countries are neither technologically, infrastructurally, or economically advanced, which in turn leads to overall unhappy citizens on the average. Most of these countries with unhappy people are usually from the third world countries that are quite underdeveloped as compared to their counterparts. More so, a country can be termed unhappy and have less happy people because of religious and ethnic wars that seem not to end anytime soon as seen in countries like Afghanistan Syria, Sudan among others.
Sadly, most of the countries with the most unhappy set of people happen to come from the African continent. Nevertheless, things are poised to get better as the years go by.
Here are some of the unhappy countries with unhappy people:
1. Togo
2. Burundi
3. Syria
4. Benin
5. Rwanda
6. Afghanistan
7. Burkina Faso
8. Ivory Coast
9. Guinea
10. Chad
There you have it, a sneak peek into the happiest countries that have their happy meters very high while others are very low and cannot be compared with the happy countries. Though an abundance of natural resources can help boost a country’s wealth, it is not the ultimate guarantee for the happiness of a country because the wealth of a country may not be fully maximised as a result of various factors such as corruption and lack of enlightened or highly educated workforce. In truth, the government of a country has a major role to play in harnessing the little a country has and turning it into much for the citizens of a country most especially through the laws, policies and mechanism put in place to move a country forward.