The Nordic countries dominated the UN’s 2013 happiness index. That comes at no surprise. Setting those aside, what is the happiest country in Africa?
As this infographic from Afrografique shows, it is Angola that comes out on top. What is interesting here is the spread of countries and the fact that the attitudes may not be connected to other development indicators. Angola, for example, was 148 overall in the 2013 UN Human Development Index. Mozambique fares worse on the HDI, but it too manages to score well on happiness.
On the other hand, countries like Algeria and South Africa score on the higher end of the HDI as compared to fellow African nations.
What does it mean? Happiness and development are not always connected. Or maybe this is good reason to question some of the long held assumptions about what ‘developed’ means.
