The New Economic Foundation (NEF) has released the Happy Planet Index (HPI) in which Pakistan is ranked 36th out of 140 registered countries. Pakistan even managed to outnumber most of the countries in the sub-categories.
New Economic Foundation (NEF)
NEF is a UK based organization that promotes social, economic and environmental integrity. Their aim is to increase constancy, happiness, justice and sustainability by reforming the world economy. According to the NEF, the aforementioned ingredients are missing in most of the richest countries of the world.
NEF also stated that problems that occur globally such as change in climate and financial and economic uncertainties cannot be dealt with the current situation of economic systems. In order to change the current economic system, NEF is formulating a new strategy to promote new ideas. In addition, they are also working on standard quality of research.
Objective of Happy Planet Index
Happy Planet Index lists the rankings of different countries. These countries are ranked on the basis of their self-sufficiency and welfare of their citizens. Some of the wealthiest countries in the world are ranked rather low in the HPI. On the other hand, some of the third world countries managed to top the index.
The HPI offers a path to countries that it is actually possible to live a better life without damaging Earth. The countries are ranked on the following basis:
1- Welfare of citizens and their contentment (based on Gallup data)
2- The life expectancy of the citizens (based on UN data)
3- Imbalance of effects in terms of happiness and the length of citizens’ lives
4- Effect that each citizen of the country has on its environment (based on Global Footprint Network data)
Other elements like per capita GDP, Gini index (a tool that measure the difference between the rich and the poor) and the population of a country were also reviewed for the rankings.
Ranking of Pakistan
The results of the rankings exhibited that many countries are supplying long and happy lives to their population while remaining within their environmental limits. The Latin American and the Asia Pacific region led the index. On the other hand, some of the richest countries were ranked quite low.
Pakistan obtained 36th position out of the 140 ranked countries with a score of 31.5 in the HPI. Life expectancy in Pakistan is listed as 65.7 years, which rates 102nd in the world. On the other hand, welfare has a rating of 5.1 out of 10, which ranks 78th in the world. Inequality index rated 40% with the 120th rank in the world. Surprisingly, Pakistan was ranked No. 3 out of 140 in Ecological Footprint with a rating of 0.8 global hectares per person.
The GDP per capita of Pakistan is about $1,000 per annum while its population is said to be 177.4 million. No Gini data was available in the case of Pakistan so that wasn’t considered.
Domination of Asian and Latin American countries
Global rankings are dominated by Latin American and Asian countries. Costa Rica topped the HPI with an amazing score of 44.7. It was followed by Mexico, Colombia, Vanuatu and Vietnam.
Switzerland lies on top of the wellbeing countries with the ratio of 7.8. As far as life expectancy is concerned, Hong Kong secured 1st position up with 83.6 years. In terms of inequality ratings, Netherland topped the chart with a ratio of 4% while in the ecological footprint category, Haiti obtained first position with 0.6 gHA.
Shockingly, Australia stood at 105th while USA is positioned at 108th. Wealthy countries still have a plenty of room to improve their ranking since they are ranked extremely low.
You can have a crack at the report in detail by clicking here.
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