Kenya has emerged position 119 globally in the World Happiness Report of 2022. Kenya comes after Uganda which was ranked as the first happiest country in East Africa at position 117 globally with Tanzania following Kenya at position 139 and Rwanda at position 143.
These rankings are based on life evaluations as the more stable measure of the quality of people’s lives. In this year’s report special attention is paid to specific daily emotions to better track how COVID-19 has altered different aspects of life.
According to the report it showed that Kenya’s happiness is below 21 African countries, with Mauritius ranking number one on the continent as the 52nd happiest country. Libya followed the trail as the 86th happiest country in the world and Ivory Coast ranked 88th. And so far no African country occupies the top 50 spots in the list of World Happiest Countries.
Other countries ranked above Kenya include South Africa at number 91, Gambia at 93, Algeria at 96, Liberia at 97, Congo at 99, Morocco at 100, Mozambique at 101, Cameroon at 102,Senegal at 103,Niger at 104,Gabon at 106 ,Guinea at 109,Ghana at 111, Burkina Faso at 113,Benin at 115,Comoros at 116,Uganda at 117 and Nigeria at 118.
The report also ranked Afghanistan as the unhappiest followed closely by Lebanon. Some countries like France for example have reached its highest ranking to date while others like Canada have slipped to its lowest ranking ever.
Poverty levels, corruption , conflicts and people’s trust in their government are among factors the World Happiness Report considers in determining levels of happiness.
According to the report, it states that the global covid -19 pandemic which was high in 2020 and 2021 has given rise to a general rise in happiness across the world because people have seemingly exercised more benevolence towards each other.
For the fifth year in a row, Finland remains the world’s happiest country with Denmark ranked as the second place and Iceland which was number 4 now ranking as the 3rd happiest country in the world. The other top 5 countries are Switzerland at number 4 followed by Netherlands taking position 5.
By Jane Kibathi.