Ghana has been ranked the 131st happiest country to live in, according to the new report.
Dubbed “World Happiness Report 2017’, the report ranked 155 countries in the world based on key indicators including GDP, healthy life expectancy, freedom of choice and corruption perception.
According to the report, Norway is the happiest country in the world with the Central African Republic (CAR) being the least happy.
In Africa, Ghana was the 25th happiest country to live in, out of the 44 countries assessed for the report. It came behind countries like Algeria, Mauritius, Nigeria, South Africa and Sudan. The report observed that “[The] Twenty-first century Africa is no longer associated only with ‘endless famine, disease, and dictatorship’.
The ‘Africa Rising’ narrative, which overturned earlier stereotypes, projected a continent with a growing urban middle class market with new consumer appetites.
“Africa’s youthfulness promised to be an asset in an increasingly ageing global society. The continent’s rich mineral wealth had not been exhausted and its agricultural land was still waiting to be exploited. In the new millennium, foreign direct investment in Africa eclipsed development aid for the first time since the colonial era,” it said.
The report identified Africans to have an “exceptional” level of optimism about their future. It said in spite of the deficiencies realized on the continent, its people demonstrate great resilience.
“Most countries in the world project that life circumstances will improve in future. However, Africa’s optimism may be exceptional. African people demonstrate ingenuity that makes life bearable even under less than perfect circumstances.”
“Coping with poor infrastructure, as illustrated in the case of Ghana…is just one example of the remarkable resilience that African people have perfected.
African people are essentially optimistic, most of all the youth who have their lives ahead of them. This optimism might serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy for the continent.”
The 2017 World Happiness Report was developed by a group of independent experts working with some multinationals and UN agencies.
Click here to download the full report
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