Africa and World Happiness Report 2024

 The massive World Happiness Report 2024 is now available online, published in partnership with Gallup, the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre, The UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and the World Happiness Report's editorial board.  The six key variables in the study are GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, and corruption.  

The overall global happiness 2021-2023 scores are based on individuals' own assessments of their lives, in particular their answers to the Cantril ladder life-evaluation question in the Gallup World Poll. They are not based on any index of the six key variables in the study.  See pages 14-17 of the report. 

Out of 143 countries in the study, the five highest ranked African countries are war-torn Libya (66)!!, Mauritius (70), South Africa (83), Algeria (85), and Congo Brazzaville (89).  The five lowest ranked African countries are Lesotho (141), Sierra Leone (140), Congo Kinshasa (139), Zimbabwe (138), and Botswana (137).  For purposes of comparison, the United States ranked 23 and China 60.

Africa and the World Happiness Report 2022

 The World Happiness Report 2022 has just been published.  The country rankings of happiness are based on a three-year average from 2019 through 2021 for 146 countries globally, including 39 in Africa.  The study uses six variables: GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, and corruption. 

The highest scoring African country was Mauritius at number 52.  Eight African countries held positions in the bottom ten: Zambia (137), Malawi (138), Tanzania (139), Sierra Leone (140), Lesotho (141), Botswana (142), Rwanda (143), and Zimbabwe (144).  

Freedom on the Net in Africa

Freedom House has just released its "Freedom on the Net" report that assessed the level of internet and digital media freedom in 65 countries, including 16 in Africa.

Of the 16 countries included in Africa, the best performing was South Africa, followed by Kenya, Angola, Nigeria, and Tunisia. Although much improved over last year, Sudan was the worst performing. Egypt, Ethiopia (also much improved over last year), Rwanda, and Zimbabwe followed as worst performing.

Role of Women in Sudan's Revolution

African Arguments posted on 2 July 2019 a report titled "'I'm against All of the Laws of This Regime': What Sudan's Women Want" by Samie al-Negar, an independent Sudanese researcher, and Liv Tonnessen, Chr. Michelsen Institute.

Women have been at the forefront of the ongoing protests in Sudan. Some are demanding gender equality but others just want a better life and an end to sexual abuse.

Africa and the World Happiness Report 2018

World Happiness Report 2018 is now available. It ranks 156 countries by their happiness levels as measured by GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and corruption.

The best performers in Africa are Mauritius (55 globally), Libya (70), Algeria (84), Morocco (85), and Nigeria (91). The worst performers in Africa are Burundi (156), Central African Republic (155), South Sudan (154), Tanzania (153), and Rwanda (151). There are many surprises throughout the ranking.

Africa and the Human Freedom Index 2018

The Cato Institute, the Fraser Institute, and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom have just published "The Human Freedom Index 2018: A Global Measurement of Personal, Civil, and Economic Freedom" by Ian Vasquez and Tanja Porcnik.

It evaluated 162 countries for 2016, the most recent year for which sufficient data are available. It looked at 79 indicators of personal and economic freedom in the following areas: rule of law, security, safety, movement, religion, association, assembly, civil society, expression, information, identity, relationships, size of government, legal systems, property rights, access to sound money, freedom to trade internationally, and regulation of credit, labor, and business.

Of the 47 African countries evaluated, the ten best performing were: Mauritius (37), Cape Verde (53), Seychelles (54), Ghana (57), South Africa (63), Botswana (64), Rwanda (71), Namibia (74), Kenya (82), and Uganda (85). The five worst performing African countries were: Libya (158), Sudan (157), Egypt (156), Algeria (155) and Burundi (154).

2018 World Happiness Report: East Africa and Horn

The 2018 World Happiness Report has just been released. It evaluates 156 countries based on the pooled results from Gallup World Poll surveys from 2015-2017. The key variables are income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, trust, and generosity.

East Africa and the Horn do not score well. The best performer at number 98 is Somalia! Go figure. Kenya comes in at number 124, Ethiopia at 127, Uganda at 135, Sudan at 137, Tanzania at 153, and South Sudan at 154. Eritrea is not ranked.

East Africa: Forbes' 2017 Listing of Best Countries for Business

Forbes has released its 2017 global listing of Best Countries for Business. It evaluated 139 countries on the basis of the following 11 factors: property rights, innovation, taxes, technology, corruption, red tape, investor protection, stock market performance, personal freedom, trade freedom, and monetary freedom.

Countries in East Africa did not score well. Kenya ranked best at number 105, followed by Uganda (107), Tanzania (122), and Ethiopia (130). Other countries in the Horn of Africa were not included in the survey.

Happiness Index: East Africa and the Horn

The World Happiness Report 2015 edited by John Helliwell, Richard Layard, and Jeffrey Sachs has just been released.  Switzerland ranks as the happiest country.  The United States is number 15.  The report looks at the following six factors, which tend to favor high rankings for Western countries: GDP per capita, healthy years of life expectancy, social support, perceived absence of corruption, perceived freedom to make life decisions, and recent donations.

Of the 158 countries evaluated, most of those in Africa scored low.  In East Africa and the Horn, Somaliland scored best at 91, followed by Sudan at 118, Ethiopia at 122, Kenya at 125, Djibouti at 126, Uganda at 141, and Tanzania at 146.  There was no rating for Somalia, South Sudan or Eritrea. 

Chinese Migrant Shopkeepers in South Africa

International Migration Review published in its spring 2014 issue an article titled "'Big Fish in a Small Pond': Chinese Migrant Shopkeepers in South Africa" by Edwin Lin at the University of California, Berkeley.  

The author argues that the Chinese move to South Africa because of a desire to venture out of China to pursue freedoms associated with being one's own boss.  Once in South Africa, they choose to stay because of comfortable weather and a slower pace of life, despite losing freedoms associated with high crime in Johannesburg. 

ESAT Television Program on Democracy

The Washington-based TV station ESAT asked me to join a program focused on democracy.  Assegid Habtewold was the moderator and Getachew Metaferia, political science professor at Morgan State University, was the other participant. 

The wide ranging hour long program covered democracy, freedom, prosperity, Francis Fukuyama and the end of history, Hegel, Marx, globalization, technology, the Arab Spring, revolutionary democracy and developmental democracy in Ethiopia.