The United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, which uses statistical analysis to determine the world’s happiest countries, has released the much awaited list for 2022.
The report was released on Monday, March 20, the International Day of Happiness, a day designated by the United Nations that’s marking its 10th anniversary in 2023.
The report identifies the happiest nations, those at the very bottom of the happiness scale and everything in between, plus the factors that tend to lead to greater happiness.
The ranking of the World Happiness Report considers a range of economic, social, and environmental factors, and offers insights into what makes a country a great place to live.
The report draws on global survey data from people in more than 150 countries. Countries are ranked on happiness based on their average life evaluations over the three preceding years, in this case 2020 to 2022.
While Finland, Denmark and Iceland ranked first to third respectively, Israel, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Luxembourg and New Zealand made it to the top 10 happiest countries in the world.
The first African country on the list, Mauritius, made it to the 59th position on the list. It was followed by Algeria at 81 while South Africa took the third position in Africa at 85th position.
Others are, Congo who emerged fourth in Africa at 86th position, Guinea is fifth at 91 position, Ivory coast sixth at 93, Gabon seventh at 94, Nigeria eighth at 95, Cameroon ninth at 96, and Mozambique the tenth African country in the rank at 97th position.
Other African countries ranked between 100 and 135 of a total of 137 countries.
The list of the world’s happiest countries sheds light on the nations where people enjoy the highest levels of well-being and satisfaction with their lives.
“Benevolence to others, especially the helping of strangers, which went up dramatically in 2021, stayed high in 2022,” John Helliwell, one of the authors of the World Happiness Report, said in an interview with CNN.
And global happiness has not taken a hit in the three years of the Covid-19 pandemic. Life evaluations from 2020 to 2022 have been “remarkably resilient,” the report says, with global averages basically in line with the three years preceding the pandemic.
Even during these difficult years, positive emotions have remained twice as prevalent as negative ones, and feelings of positive social support twice as strong as those of loneliness,” Helliwell said in a news release.