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Good Country Index: Kenya is number one in Africa




For the first time in the world, a survey ranks countries according to their contribution to humanity and the Earth as a whole (rather than only to its own citizens).
The Good Country Index surveyed and ranked 125 countries on 35 indicators based on those developed by the World Bank, United Nations, and other institutions (National News, June 26m 2014). Indicators include the way a country responds to issues such as education, health, science, war and peace, trade, culture, censorship, environment, freedom, climate change, economic crises, terrorism, drug trafficking, slavery, equality, and poverty. The seven main categories were: (1) world order, (2) prosperity and equality, (3) planet and climate, (4) health and well-being, (5) science, (6) technology, and (7) culture.
Indicators cannot be measured in a single year, so the researchers collected data over a period of 10 years with 2010 forming the baseline. The study was conducted by Simon Anholt, University of Oxford scholar, and Robert Govers from the Rotterdam School of Management.
Kenya topped the list of African countries and was ranked 26 globally out of all 125 countries. It was fourth in Africa in the prosperity and equality category, after Ghana, Zambia, and Botswana. Kenya received high scores for sending peace-keeping troops to Somalia, hosting refugees, voluntary excess donations to the World Health Organisation, internet security, international publications in science and technology (in 2009), Nobel prizes, arms exports, pharmaceutical exports, the number of United Nations volunteers abroad, humanitarian aid donations, and charity giving. Kenya performed below average in dues in arrears to UN peace-keeping budgets, creative services exports, patents, UN treaties signed, carbon emissions, other greenhouse emissions, and food aid. Its lowest performance was in the planet and climate category, even though Nairobi is the location of the UN Environmental Program.
Libya ranked last of the African countries, as well as globally.
Ireland topped the Good Country Index, ranking best in the prosperity and equality category.



MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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