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 2019

The Sustainable Development Solutions Network published in March 2019 the 2019 edition of the "World Happiness Report" edited by John F. Helliwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey D. Sachs. Factors considered in the rankings are GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and perception of corruption.

The 2019 report ranked 156 countries, 45 in Africa. The best ranked African countries were Mauritius (57), Libya (72), Nigeria (85), Algeria (88), and Morocco (89). The poorest ranked African countries were South Sudan (156), Central African Republic (155), Tanzania (153), Rwanda (152), and Malawi (150). Some of the rankings are counter intuitive. Who would have thought Libya is the second best rated African country or that Tanzania and Rwanda are near the bottom. It is important, however, to consider the factors used to construct the index.

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.