Bahrain ranked 37th on UN’s World Happy Index

Bahrain was ranked 37th on a list of 157 countries produced by the UN which ranked them based on the level of happiness of the citizens in their government. The World Happiness Report, produced by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, said, “What governments do affect happiness, and in turn, the happiness of citizens in most countries determines what kind of governments they support.”

“All of the top countries rank highly on all the main factors found to support happiness: caring, freedom, generosity, honesty, health, income and good governance,” the report stated. UAE was ranked the happiest country in the Gulf region, raking 21st internationally. Saudi Arabia was ranked 28th, and Kuwait at 51. Norway was ranked as the happiest country in the world. Variables that support well-being, such as GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, social freedom, generosity and absence of corruption are considered when assessing the happiness of people.

“Governments have a strong role in determining the happiness of a countries population,” the report noted. This year’s World Happiness Report focuses on happiness and the community: how happiness has evolved over the past dozen years, with a focus on the technologies, social norms, conflicts and government policies that have driven those changes. The assessment was based on the fact that Governments set the institutional and policy framework in which individuals, businesses and governments themselves operate.

“The links between the government and happiness operate in both directions.” “It is sometimes possible to trace these linkages in both directions,” the report said which is based on a survey that intends to understand the state of global happiness. “The effects of government actions on happiness are often difficult to separate from the influences of other things happening at the same time.

Unravelling may sometimes be made easier by having measures of citizen satisfaction in various domains of life, with satisfaction with local and national governments treated as separate domains,”  the report stated. The report was published by the UN’s Sustainable Development Solution Network and supported by a three-year grant from the Ernesto Illy Foundation.