Out of the 156 countries in the world, Namibia was ranked the 113th world’s happiest coutry by the United Nations World Happiness Report for 2019.
Corruption was one of the main factors that Namibians were not happy about and the results also showed that Namibians were very generous people. In 2018 Namibia was ranked as the 119th happiest country in the world and 11th in Africa.
Countries such as Mauritius, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Benin, Congo, Gabon, South Africa, Senegal and Somalia all ranked higher than Namibia in terms of happiness.
The criteria for choosing the world’s happiest nation is based on income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, trust and generosity. The World Happiness Report is a landmark survey of the state of global happiness that ranks 156 countries by how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be. This year’s World Happiness Report focuses on happiness and the community: how happiness has evolved over the past dozen years, with a focus on the technologies, social norms, conflicts and government policies that have driven those changes
The report took a look at what governments do and how that affects the happiness of its citizens. “The links between the government and happiness operate in both direction, what governments do affects happiness, and in turn the happiness of citizens in most countries determines what kind of governments they support.
Another factor also considered to measure how happy nations are was how generous citizens were among each other. The report also examined happiness and digital technology and looks at the consequences of digital use, and especially social media, for the happiness of users.
People in South Sudan are the most unhappy with their lives, according to the survey of 156 countries, followed by Central African Republic (155), Afghanistan (154), Tanzania (153) and Rwanda (152). Finland was ranked the world’s happiest country.
According to the report overall world happiness has fallen over the past few years. There has also been an increase of negative emotions, which were also measured and include worry, sadness and anger.
The rankings of the world’s happiest countries came from an analysis of data from surveys in 156 countries, including the Gallup World Poll starting in 2005-2006.
