Accounting for Happiness, Africans Falter
By JESSE MASAI
Emotions of World Cup qualification or failure aside, a report released late on October 14th ranks 12 African nations among the world's 20 least happy.
Ghanaians, for a while now considered serious candidates for membership on the list of fastest-developing nations, will be shocked that they top the list of 20 poorest performers released by Legatum, an international investment organization, at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).
Other bad boys and girls include Senegal, Kenya, Nigeria and now perennial under-achiever, Zimbabwe.
Australia led top-twenty countries, the list on which not even South Africa, Africa's economic powerhouse, could rank.
The report's authors, William Inboden and Ryan Streeter, informed the writer that African nations still had a long way to go in raising incomes, commercializing innovations, growth in invested capital, good governance on economic and political issues. Both Inboden and Streeter have worked at high levels in America's public and private sectors, including national security.
Africa expert at AEI Roger Bates said he had been impressed by the report, but called for clarity on whether the index would be a policy tool or merely another measure of category. He said African countries lagged behind on the index because they continue to suffer from a democratic deficit, torn between pleasing donors and their own people.
Franck Wiebe, chief economist for the Millennium Challenge Corporation, hailed the report as “a bold and intellectually exciting activity,” which he said satisfies every concern his organization has had about the measure of global happiness.
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