Namibians 'unhappy'

Namibia is rated among the countries with the saddest populations in the world.This was revealed in the 2019 World Happiness Report, which was released as people across the globe celebrated International Day of Happiness on Wednesday. Namibia was ranked the 113th happiest country in the world out of 156 countries. The report is a landmark survey of the state of global happiness. The rankings were based on averages taken from 2016 to 2018. For the second year in a row, Finland was named the happiest country, followed by Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Sweden. Published by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, the rankings are based on people's assessments of their well-being in Gallup World Poll surveys.The top nations, the report says, “tend to have high values for all six of the key variables that have been found to support well-being: income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, trust and generosity”.Namibia scored a total of 4.6 out of 10 in comparison to top-ranking countries such as Finland, which scored of 7.7.The unhappiest countries globally are Rwanda, Tanzania, Afghanistan, the Central African Republic (CAR) and South Sudan, which ranked last out of all the countries with a score of 2.8. Namibia is ranked 12th in sub-Saharan Africa. Countries like Mauritius, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Benin, Congo, Gabon, South Africa, Senegal and Somalia all outrank Namibia. In 2018 Namibia was ranked as the 119th happiest country in the world and 11th in Africa. The report says Namibians became unhappier between from 2005 to 2008 and 2016 to 2018. There was a 0.276 decrease in the 'change of happiness' in Namibia during this time. Countries should be as concerned by unhappiness as they are by any other public health threat, the report said.Ultimately, the World Happiness Report aims to encourage governments and individuals to shape policies and life choices with greater well-being in mind.ELLANIE SMIT

Namibians 'unhappy'

Comments

Namibian Sun 2025-09-16

Please login to leave a comment

Namibians 'unhappy'

Comments

Namibian Sun 2025-09-16

Please login to leave a comment

Login