Uganda has been ranked the happiest country in East Africa by the 2022 World Happiness Report.
Uganda ranks first (117 globally) followed by Kenya (119 globally), Tanzania (139 globally) and Rwanda (143 globally).
For the fifth year in a row, Finland continues to occupy the top spot, with a score significantly ahead of other countries in the top ten.
Denmark continues to occupy second place, with Iceland up from 4th place last year to 3rd this year. Switzerland is 4th, followed by the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
The top ten are rounded out by Sweden, Norway, Israel and New Zealand. The following five are Austria, Australia, Ireland, Germany, and Canada. This marks a substantial fall for Canada, which was 5th in the first World Happiness Report.
The rest of the top 20 include the United States at 16th (up from 19th last year), the United Kingdom and Czechia still in 17th and 18th, followed by Belgium at 19th, and France at 20th, its highest ranking yet.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the World Happiness Report, which uses global survey data to report how people evaluate their own lives in more than 150 countries worldwide.
The World Happiness Report 2022 reveals a bright light in dark times. The pandemic brought not only pain and suffering but also an increase in social support and benevolence.
“As we battle the ills of disease and war, it is essential to remember the universal desire for happiness and the capacity of individuals to rally to each other’s support in times of great need,” reads an overview to the report.
Overall levels of life evaluations have been fairly stable during two years of COVID-19, matched by modest changes in the global rankings.
Among the six variables used to explain these levels, there has been general growth in real GDP per capita and healthy life expectancy, generally declining perceptions of corruption and freedom, declining generosity (until 2020), and fairly constant overall levels of social support.
Well-being inequality has generally grown since 2011, especially in Sub Saharan Africa, MENA, Latin America, and South and Southeast Asia.
Positive emotions have generally been twice as prevalent as negative ones. That gap has been narrowing over the past ten years, with enjoyment and laughter on a negative trend in most regions and worry and sadness on rising trends (with the general exception of Central and Eastern Europe).
Over the past decade, the trend growth in worry and sadness has been greatest in South Asia, Latin America, MENA, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Anger has remained low and stable in the global average, with large increases in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa offset by trend declines elsewhere.
There have been trend increases in national-average stress levels in all ten global regions.
Individual-level data for emotions and life evaluations reveal that COVID-19 has worsened the well-being costs of unemployment and ill health. The pandemic has also exposed, but not increased, pre-existing differences between males and females and between those with low and high incomes.
Fuelled by worry and sadness, but not by anger, negative affect as a whole was about 8% above its pre-pandemic value in 2020, falling to 3% above baseline in 2021.
Trust and benevolence have, if anything, become more important. Higher institutional trust continues to be linked to lower death rates from COVID-19 to a greater extent in 2021 than in 2020.
Although our three measures of prosocial behaviour – donations, volunteering and helping strangers – had differing levels and trends, all showed increases in 2021 in every global region, often at remarkable rates not seen for any of the variables we have tracked before and during the pandemic.
Global benevolence, as measured by the average of the three measures of prosocial behaviour, has increased remarkably in 2021, up by almost 25% of its pre-pandemic level, led by the helping of strangers, but with strong growth also in donations and volunteering.
The COVID-19 pandemic starting in 2020 has led to a 2021 pandemic of benevolence with equally global spread. All must hope that the pandemic of benevolence will live far beyond COVID-19. If sustainable, this outpouring of kindness provides grounds for hope and optimism in a world needing more of both.
